Hibs fans once again demonstrated their frustration at the full-time whistle after losing to St Mirren at Easer Road yesterday.
Shaun Maloney made two changes from the side that drew with city rivals, Hearts, in midweek with Demetri Mitchell and Josh Campbell starting in the place of Josh Doig and Joe Newell.
Goalkeeper Kevin Dąbrowski’s man-of-the-match performance on Tuesday ensured he kept his place in the starting XI as Matt Macey was amongst the substitutes.
In a lacklustre opening 45-minutes, a Kevin Nisbet header and a shot from Chris Mueller after a superb piece of skill were the only action of note.
Ewan Henderson replaced Christian Doidge at the interval and Mueller moving up front.
Hibs started to create chances and Mueller’s shot flew well over the bar then Nisbet set up Henderson but Jak Alnwick did well to block his close range effort.
Chris Cadden continued to supply low crosses from the right but there were never any takers.
Alnwick then produced a sensational save to deny Henderson and it looked just a matter of time before a goal arrived.
Sure enough it did but for the visitors. A simple throw to Jake Doyle-Hayes culminated with him taking too long on the ball and he was dispossessed on the edge of the area by Connor Ronan who fired the ball past the Hibs keeper.
Hibs almost equalised immediately when Cadden found Nisbet inside the area but his effort was tipped round the post for a corner.
St Mirren then almost added a second with a low cross into the 6-yard box but like Hibs there were no takers.
Sylvester Jasper replaced Campbell and looked lively but the Saints held on to take all three points.
Once again the players were booed from the pitch.
Afterwards Maloney told Hibs TV: “I’m hugely disappointed. I’m mixed a little bit in terms of the performance, I was really disappointed with how we played first half, and then second half we changed things and we created so many opportunities.
“I think the real frustrating part is that we just aren’t clinical enough at the moment. If we are, the result would have been very different. It should have been a lot different than what it was, but that’s football.
“If you’re not clinical and you don’t take the chances you create, then you leave yourself open to conceding and losing the game.
“I think when you coach, you have to try and find the answers. For large parts since I’ve been here, we’ve really worked very hard on defensive organisation, which has been very good. Again, it was good today.
“We gave up the goal from our own throw-in and we conceded a very dangerous cross, but otherwise there wasn’t too much to hurt us.
“Now we’ve worked extremely hard on actually creating chances, and we are now starting to show that. I have to support our attacking players.
“I know with the quality that we have this will change and when it does, I’ll be standing here talking about a lot more games that we win than obviously what happened today.”
Hibs: Dabrowski, Porteous, Doidge (Henderson 46’), Mueller, Nisbet, Stevenson (Doig 80’), Mitchell (Scott 80’), Doyle-Hayes (Allan 81’), Cadden, Campbell (Jasper 69’), Bushiri. Substitutes not used: Macey, McGinn, Wright, Allan, McGregor.
St Mirren: Alnwick, Tait, Shaughnessy, Power (Erahon 70’), Jones (Millar 77’), Kiltie, Henderson (Flynn 61’), Dunne, Greive (Main 70’), Fraser, Ronan. Substitutes not used: Lyness, McCarthy, Erwin.
Referee: Greg Aitken.
Attendance: 13,227.
John graduated from Telford College in 2010 with an HNC in Practical Journalism and since then he worked for the North Edinburgh News, The Southern Reporter, the Irish News Review and The Edinburgh Reporter. In addition he has been published in the Edinburgh Evening News and the Hibernian FC Programme.
