David Gray admitted that self-inflicted errors coupled with a poor first-half performance culminated in Hibs defeat in last night’s Edinburgh derby.
James Wilson and Laurent Mendy put the visitors ahead before substitute Adam Mayor pulled one back.
But the momentum shifted in Hearts’ favour after Jack Iredale was shown a second-yellow card for a high-foot – before Josh McPake added a third for the visitors.
Speaking to Hibs TV after the match, Gray admitted the a poor first-half performance and self-inflicted errors cost us.
“I thought our first-half performance wasn’t good enough at all. In terms of the way you want to start any game of football, to give yourself the chance of being on top, you need to compete and be up for second balls, and we didn’t do that enough in the first half.
“We needed to start better, and we found ourselves 1-0 down. I thought at that point we steadied a little bit, created a couple of chances and probably should have gone 1-1. They then score a really poor goal from a set-piece and we find ourselves 2-0 down at half-time. As I say, we weren’t good enough.
“The second half was much better. There were a couple of changes, but I could have changed anybody. I didn’t change the shape, I just changed a bit of personnel and asked the players to be more aggressive, which is how I wanted us to start the game.
“In the second half, we got the reaction. We got back into the game, started creating the most chances again, and the momentum was all with us. At that point, I felt there was only one team that was going to score.
“Then the red card happens, which is a multitude of errors, to be honest. It makes it really difficult for the players at that point because you go down to 10 men.
“To lose a third goal in the manner we did, because it was again a multitude of errors, whether you had nine men or eight men, we need to defend that much better. It was a really soft goal to lose.”
Despite creating multiple chances across the 90 minutes, Gray was frustrated that Hibs couldn’t convert, or capitalise on the momentum at key times.
“We’ve been in this movie before”, he continued.
“Credit to the players that remained on the pitch because they didn’t give up, they kept going. It would have been really easy to feel sorry for yourself, being 3-1 down and down to 10 men, but they didn’t fold. They kept going, created chances again, but again we didn’t take them.
“I keep saying the same things, but we need to make sure we’re putting ourselves in those positions to create chances, and we need to keep going.
“It was a self-inflicted mistake for the second yellow. We spoke at half-time about being on a yellow card and being very careful, and it was about being disciplined. I spoke before the game about being disciplined. We experienced that last season and got punished for that last season as well.
“In terms of the momentum, it was certainly there. I thought there was only one team that was going to score the next goal in the game. Which makes it even harder to take because there’s very little in the game at that point.
“Even after that, when we were down to 10 men – we were the team that was still pushing and still trying to get back into the game.
“That all makes it tougher to take for the players because they can look at that and go, ‘what might have been?’
“But ultimately, we’ve lost the Derby. It hurts, it’s going to hurt. I know what it means to absolutely everybody.
“The important thing is now that you need to own that. I own it, and we dust ourselves down and make sure we bounce back as quickly as we can.”
