Lee Johnson apologises to fans after defeat to Ross County

Hibs dropped to sixth place after a disappointing home defeat to Ross County last night.

Lee Johnson made two changes from the side that lost to Aberdeen.

Demetri Mitchell came in for his first start of the season in place of Marijan Čabraja, whilst Elias Melkersen returned at the expense of Kyle Magennis, who missed out through injury.

The only real chance of the first-half fell to County’s Jordan White but Paul Hanlon did well to block his effort.

Then just before the break Yan Dhanda crossed to an unmarked George Harmon who poked the ball into the net.

Hibs responded by bringing on Elie Youan and Josh Campbell but it did little to brighten their fortunes.

Rocky Bushiri almost equalised with a powerful effort but former Hibs keeper Ross Laidlaw produced a save.

The visitors doubled their lead in the 70^th minute when Harmon’s cross found Alex Iacovitti who made no mistake.

The Hibs fans let the team know of their feelings at full time.

Speaking to Hibs TV after the match, Lee Johnson admitted the performance was not up to standard and apologised to the Hibs supporters.

He said: “It was nowhere near good enough – I apologise to the supporters for that. I will take it – my own personal performance wasn’t good enough and it is important that I bear the brunt of this because we need to rebuild the confidence in the players.

“We didn’t play with anywhere near enough charisma tonight. We were at home, with a decent home record and with all due respect to Ross County they were near the bottom of the table heading into the game.

“All credit to them though, they performed extremely well and beat us fair and square. We have to be better than that, we have to deliver better-quality balls into the box. We let them off numerous times with balls into the box that were over-hit.

The result means we drop to sixth in the cinch Premiership and Johnson highlighted the importance of staying together, despite our recent poor run of results.

“What we have to do is rally around the lads at this moment in time. It is not the time for pointing fingers in-house. We have to go to Kilmarnock and get something, we need to stay compact, stay together and be more committed.

“The conversations in the dressing room, stay in the dressing room. We are under no illusions that tonight wasn’t good enough. We are desperate to be successful and I know the fans are desperate for us to be successful as well.

“It was a really frustrating game tonight, it was a bit damp in terms of the atmosphere because we didn’t get the crowd going with our play. We have to do more, our run of form simply hasn’t been good enough.”