Hibs’ boss believes that the ‘wrong team won’ in last night’s defeat to Rangers

Despite losing 3-0 to Rangers at Penicuik Park last night, Hibs’ manager Dean Gibson believes that the ‘wrong team won’.

A first-half double from Carly Girasoli who was left unmarked from two corners separated the sides at the break then a late strike from defender Brianna Westrup wrapped things up but Gibson believes that this was Hibs’ best performance against the Glasgow side this season.

Photos Thomas Brown

After the final whistle Gibson told Hibernian Media: “I think the wrong team won the game. I think that’s probably the best we’ve played against Rangers out of the three games but unfortunately we have came away with the heaviest defeat against them.

“First-half we switched off form two corners and that’s pretty much killed us for the rest of the of the game tonight but for me if you take the corners out of the first-half Rangers never had another chance.

“For us we were the ones creating chances. We were the ones looking most likely to score a goal. At half-time we said to the players that although we were two-nil down our best way of winning the game was doing what we were doing. We weren’t going to go chasing in silly areas and lose our discipline and the girls did that in the second-half.

“For me, if we can continue that into the next game we have every chance of taking something out of it.

Joelle Murray agreed with her manager’s assessment but was left frustrated, particularly at the manner of the opening two goals.

She added: “It’s a frustrating one, especially the first-half. We nullified their threats. They came at us with a game plan and I think we matched them and limited them to a couple of shots from distance. It was disappointing to concede the two goals from the set pieces because we do so much work on set pieces.

“I’ll need to see it back but it looked as though the girl was free for both set pieces so it was disappointing from that aspect but I can’t fault the attitude, desire and determination of the players.

“In my opinion, others might disagree but I thought we were the batter team for spells albeit we didn’t have as much possession as Rangers but they were passing from side to side trying to move us and create space but we held our shape and our discipline well so it was frustrating because in the three games against them we created more tonight but conceded more as well. It’s catch 22.”