Hibernian Football Club is a professional football club based in the Leith area of Edinburgh, Scotland, and play their football in the Scottish Premiership. The club was founded in 1875 and are commonly known as Hibs, The Hibees or my favourite nickname, The Cabbage! They play their home games at Easter Road with a capacity of 20,421.
Hibs most successful spell in the club's history was all the way back in the late 40's, early 50's, when they lifted the Scottish Premiership title 3 times in 4 seasons, with their most recent coming in 1952. Since then, The Cabbage have lifted a few Championship titles as they have fluctuated between the top two tiers, a Betfred Cup most recently in 2007 and a Scottish Cup success in 2016.
However, as everyone knows, there are two powerhouses in Scottish football and no other side other than Rangers and Celtic has lifted the top tier title since Aberdeen in the 19845/85 season....yep, just two clubs have won the past 36 Scottish Premiership's between them! My aim of this save is to overhaul these clubs and bring the title back to Edinburgh!
Now looking at the season preview for my first in charge, the bookies don't think anyone else will even get close to the top two and there are 4 clubs in Hibs, Hearts, Aberdeen and Dundee United that are pretty much playing for 3rd! The media dream 11 is entirely dominated by Celtic and Rangers players!
It's not surprising to see these two clubs dominating proceedings as they work from wage budgets of £475,000 per week and have far superior facilities, compared with our £76,000 per week.
As far as the finances go, the club is in a nice, stable position with £5 million in the bank and I have a very small budget to play with.
The squad is decent enough, but by no means spectacular. There is a nice contingent of Scottish players in the squad, which is something I would like to keep going throughout my career. It's also a very youthful team with most players aged between 18-24.
The player I'll be desperate to keep hold of is 19 year old left back, Josh Doig! He looks a very good player already and will only get better as he matures. It's likely the big boys will come knocking at my door for his services at some point and I can only hope to fend them off!
The defence is possibly the strongest part of the current team and Ryan Porteous at centre back, is another of my better players. A superb tackler of the ball, he'll be at the heart of my back line for sure and may even get my captain's armband despite being just 22.
Up front, I'll be looking to Kevin Nisbet to bag us the goals this season! He's got some decent movement off the ball and is a very good finisher so if we can get the ball in to him, I am confident he can put it in the back of the net often enough for us this year.
The club have a strategy for the long term sustainability of the football club, with the focus being on working within my budgets, signing players who can be sold on for a profit and developing youngsters through the youth system (again probably with a view to selling on for profit). We will take part in the Europa Conference League this season and the board expect me to qualify for it again next year via the league competition, so I need a top 5 finish.
Normally, when it comes to tactics, I will look at the squad I have and the players available to me and try to make something to fit them. However, this time round I wanted to try something slightly different and instead had an idea of how I want to play and set up my team and over a period of time, I will hopefully be able to build the squad to fit that tactic.
This is what I've come up with. I normally always play high wide men in either inside forward or inverted winger roles, but too often I have found them too distant and isolated from the rest of the team unless a more direct passing game is played. As I wanted to play a short passing, possession style of football, I wanted to bring the entire 11 closer together in order to facilitate that style. I have therefore dropped both winger roles back deeper so they can be more involved and not leave my wing backs so exposed as well. We will play out from the back and with the ball, the wing backs will overload the wide areas and are both set to stay wider on their individual instructions. As they overload, both wingers will come inside to surround the advanced playmaker, both supporting him for short passes, whilst also running ahead of him for through balls. Both wingers are set to sit narrower on their individual instructions to encourage this movement and leave space for the onrunning wing backs. The central midfield roles cover a more defensive ball winner...he will be my aggressor who will stick the boot in, hassle and rough up opposition attacking midfielders, whilst his partner will be the box to box workhorse getting up and down the pitch to support the transition of play in both halves of the pitch. The advanced midfielder is the creative hub and I expect more assists to come through this role than anyone...that'll probably be the most important role in this formation. I have started with the striker on Poacher as I simply want him running off the last man, sniffing around for opportunities and putting the ball in the back of the net. With so many players supporting the attacking play, he shouldn't need to be involved in creating chances but instead can focus solely on scoring goals! That role is subject to change depending on who is playing there and what works best. We will focus on narrower play to ensure players remain closer together for the short possession passing game. With players needing to support the attacks from deep, we don't want to rush the ball up to the striker too quickly and leave him on his own, so a work ball into the box style should ensure patient build up and give us time to get those wide men forward and wing backs up the pitch. Again, I will try different games with a fast and lower tempo to see what works best in this respect. Although the midfielders are sitting slightly deeper than one of my normal formations, a high line and high pressing game will ensure they are naturally further up the pitch anyway.
We had four friendlies to try it out which offered up a mixed bag of results.
My first competitive game managing the club would be out in Iceland as we took on Stjarnan in the first leg of our 2nd qualifying round for the Europa Conference League...
Despite dominating possession with 58% and having 28 shots on their goal, hitting the woodwork twice and having a goal disallowed for offside, we simply couldn't find the back of the net and have to settle for a 0-0 draw. The football was very encouraging but our finishing left a lot to be desired.
I had every faith we would get the job done in the return leg back in Scotland though after such a commanding display in Iceland...
And it was again an incredibly commanding performance from us as the stats show.
So I can't actually believe we suffered a penalty shootout defeat. An embarrassing exit from European competition before it even got started against the Icelandic minnows and this is not the way I envisaged my Hibs career starting!
Time to turn our attentions back to domestic football and to my surprise, it's not a striker from one of the big two clubs that is favourite to win the golden boot this season! Instead, it is our very own Kevin Nisbet!
We'd need Kev to be at his best for the opening league game of the season, as we had been handed the most difficult opener possible...away at Celtic!
We lost the game but it was a credible effort from my lads and going forward there were plenty of positives. We couldn't handle them defensively, but if we play like this against most teams in this league, we should do OK.
My first signing for the club is a season long loan deal for 20 year old Scottish midfielder, Scott High. He will provide essential cover in the middle of the park and can play both my ball winning and box to box roles. He comes here from Huddersfield and should be able to make an impact in Scotland for us this year.
There was also a key addition to the backroom staff as the Dutch legend, Marco Van Basten, joins as Director of Football.
Our first home game of the season would see us welcome Dundee FC to Easter Road and I was desperately seeking my first win as Hibs boss...
And we got it! Not the most convincing of results, but that first win is oh so important and is massive in the grand scheme of things!
An early break from league football would see us venture into our first domestic cup competition as we faced Kilmarnock in the second round of the Betfred Cup...
They didn't really cause us any problems here and Kevin Nisbet performed well in an altered Target Forward role, bagging himself a hat trick!
Back in the league, I fully expected us to follow up the cup win with another against Ross County...
Ross Callachan let us off the hook when he missed his 38th minute penalty for County here and we immediately made him pay when Kyle Magennis headed home 3 minutes later. In the 2nd half, we were a lot better and went on to win the game comfortably after a rocky first period.
Livingston had only taken a single point from their opening 4 games, so it was a great opportunity for us to chalk up our first away win of the season...
And we did just that, with Kyle Magennis dominating proceedings as he bagged a hat trick!
After a defeat to open the season against Celtic, we have bounced back with 3 straight wins which leaves us 2nd in the table in these early stages.
Our next match would pit us against Scottish giants, Rangers. We had already been beaten by Celtic, but 3 wins on the bounce since then have boosted our confidence...
We gave it a very good effort again, but just as with the game against Celtic we are outmuscled by a single goal.
There's no more of a perfect way to respond to a defeat than with a big win though and St Johnstone certainly felt our frustrations here. We had an incredible 40 shots at their goal in this game, so they can probably count themselves a little lucky we only scored 4!
And after absolutely hammering St Johnstone in the league, we took them on again just 3 days later in the quarter final of the Betfred Cup...
Despite having another 35 shots on goal, we only managed to get one in the back of the net this time and had to rely on a penalty shootout to see us through. Starting to think we're not much of a cup team!
The worst thing to come out of the cup game though was the injury suffered by centre back, Paul Hanlon. It's unlikely he will play again this season after breaking his ankle! He is my captain and has been ever present this season so will be a massive miss for us!
Our first game without him in the side would be against 8th placed Dundee United...
We weren't at our best but a determined and gritty performance ensures we take all three points.
6th placed St Mirren were up next at Easter Road...
Despite being on top for most of the game, we just couldn't find that second goal and were punished late on and have to settle for a draw.
The biggest game in Hibs calendar is not against the big two, but instead The Edinburgh Derby, which is contested against local rivals Hearts. My first taste of that was up next...
And it was a sweet taste as we take all 3 points and give the fans the bragging rights. Things were pretty even and could have gone either way with the decisive moment coming in the 75th minute. A two footed lunge from Taylor Moore saw him see red and Scott Allan (not long off the bench) scored directly from the resulting free kick with a top bins strike!
With the joy of the Hearts win, comes the heartbreak of another big injury that will have an impact on our season. Kyle Magennis will be out for up to 5 months with a torn hamstring!!
He's currently leading the way in the division for goals scored and will be sorely missed by us! How unlucky for us to lose two of our best players for pretty much the whole season!
Still, we have no choice but to get on with it as they say, and up next was an underperforming Aberdeen side who came into this game bottom of the table with just 5 points from their opening 9 games...
So it was bitterly disappointing that we were thrashed by them! Maybe we are going to miss our key players even more than I thought we would!
I was looking for a response from my lads against Motherwell...
And I got it! We were all over them here and dominated from start to finish! The goals came late on, but were thoroughly deserved!
So after everyone has played each other once, we are the only side that are currently keeping up with the 2 big boys for now! It's been a decent first round of games for us!
Forgot the league screenshot....sorry! But we are 3rd behind, 2 points behind Rangers and Celtic.
Next up was a massive game at home to Celtic. It was a real spectacle for the fans at their place on the opening day as we suffered a 4-3 defeat and I was interested to see how we could do with home advantage on our side...
Not great to be honest! Celtic have obviously come on stronger since the opening day and dominated us for large periods of the game, recording a comfortable victory over us.
We needed to bounce back quickly away at Ross County...
But we were really poor! Simply didn't turn up and the effects of missing some of our key players to injury are becoming clear for all to see!
And things get even worse on the injury front as we lose my first choice left winger for the next game!
Three defeats in our last four games isn't ideal form going into an Edinburgh Derby semi final in the Betfred Cup...
And by half time it was all over...and not in our favour! Absolutely dreadful!
I made some tactical tweaks for the next game, dropping the defensive line deeper and stop trying to play the offside trap. On top of that, I stopped focusing play through the middle and moved the lone striker role to an advanced forward. I hoped it would bring about a change in fortunes against Dundee...
It did bring about an improved performance and we were on top for majority of the game. However, we squandered a stupid amount of chances and really should have had 3 or 4 here. We have to settle for a draw though and have nobody to blame but ourselves!
Despite our poor form, I really felt that if we could replicate that performance against Dundee in our next fixture against 11th placed St Johnstone, then we would win the game pretty comfortably. It would just rely on if my attackers could actually put the ball in the back of the net! Surely they couldn't have two massively off games in a row...
21 shots on goal and 2 scored was enough to get the win that we so badly needed!
And we scraped another win against bottom of the table Livingston to make it back to back victories. We are having to fight really hard for these wins with some key players out, but are continuing to get by...just!
After those two wins, we knew Dundee United would present a tougher opposition, as they are one of the teams sitting right behind us in the league and would be looking to close the gap...
They didn't as we played out a 1-1 draw. We probably should have won this on the balance of play, but it was more important we didn't lose than anything and we achieved that!
Another 1-1 draw followed, but this was a very good one and for the first time in my career I pick up a point against one of the big two!
One thing we are doing well with so far this season is controlling the possession in our games. Only Celtic and Rangers have better ball retention stats than us. We just need to be converting this into more goals now.
The league table does follow the trend of the possession numbers with the top 4 replicating that leaderboard. Celtic are already running away with the league at this stage with even Rangers struggling to keep up with them. We have a nice little buffer between us and Hearts but will need to have our wits about us as a couple of bad results could see that all change very quickly.
Time for our 3rd Edinburgh Derby of the season and we had a point to prove after being smashed 5-0 by Hearts in the cup in our last meeting...
I really felt it was important we got off to a fast start here as if we conceded the first goal, it could set off doubts in the players minds after the thumping in our last meeting. I was therefore extremely pleased when Ewan Henderson put us in front as early as the 6th minute with a close range effort. Henderson had been brought into the team in place of the injured Scott Allan and he was clearly enjoying himself in the advanced playmaker role, creating a number of good chances during the first half. However, the rest of the lads couldn't finish them off and we went into the break 1-0 up. The message at half time was 'more of the same please' and my team delivered, coming out strong in the second half and we doubled our lead on 66 minutes through Ryan Porteous as he headed home froma beautifully flighted free kick into the box from Demetri Mitchell. It was enough to condemn our rivals to defeat and is a massive result for us as it always will be in a game of such importance to our fans!
Our biggest league defeat this season came at the hands of Aberdeen, who beat us 4-1 a couple of months back. It was another game that we was keen to avenge...
And revenge is sweet! A solid performance to ensure victory. Defensively solid which was the foundations of the win, whilst Ewan Henderson picked up where he left off against Hearts to score the winner!
It means our December was unbeaten
And we kicked off the new year with another win. A good one as well considering we're 3rd and St Mirren are 4th!
Motherwell had started the season really well, but have completely fallen away and came into our game with just one win in their last 14 games! Surely we wouldn't drop points here...
Solid! Never really in doubt!
That Motherwell win extended our unbeaten run to 9 games, but we'd face the league leaders as we attempted to extend that run into double figures...
But it proved a little beyond us still as Celtic continue to show that they are on another level right now compared to the rest of the league! PLAYER SOLD; The January transfer window was now in full flow and we have a key departure from the club. Kevin Nisbet has been bitterly disappointing for us this season, with only 4 league goals all year despite being touted pre season as the golden boot favourite. He just doesn't seem to fit my style of play and consistently turns in below par performances. I therefore stuck him up on the transfer list and allowed him to join St Johnstone in a deal worth £500k.
Which led us to the 4th round of the Scottish Cup and our 4th encounter of the season with fierce rivals, Hearts...
And for the second time this season, they get the better of us in cup competition and knock us out after a tightly contested game.
After a couple of defeats in quick succession, we went into the game against 7th placed Ross County knowing that a win was essential. But we'd lost our last meeting with them 2-0 so wasn't expecting an easy game by any means...
It wasn't easy and we weren't at our best, but we ground out a 1-0 win!
LOAN SIGNING; Transfer deadline day arrives and a new arrival too. Scott Wright is an attacking player who joins us on loan for the remainder of the season from Rangers. He definitely improves my wide options and should have an impact for us!
NEW SIGNING; Alongisde that loan deal, there was a permanent deal as well. Again, a wide player who will bolster my attacking options, in the form of Luton Town's Jordan Clark, who signs for £205k.
Both new signings went straight into the starting lineup for the game against Dundee FC...
And both did have an instant impact as Wright set up Clark for the equalizer. However, it wasn't a happy debut for either as we went on to suffer a disappointing loss!
We immediately got back to winning ways though with a thrashing of Livingston. Jordan Clark scored again and bagged an assist as he continues to impress in his early days in Hibs shirt.
The big two are well clear in the league, but we are miles ahead of the rest in 3rd place at the moment. We have 7 games of the regular season to go and then the league splits into 2 and we will play everyone in the top half once to decide the final places. Considering the injuries we've suffered this year, I am more than happy with the way we are performing!
11th placed St Johnstone shouldn't have posed any threat to us at all really...
In fact, we were more of a threat to ourselves. 19 shots and complete domination in possession and we simply couldn't score. So in the end, they did it for us and we come away with 3 points!
I knew we wouldn't be able to be so wasteful in front of goal against Rangers in our next game...
To be fair, we didn't really create anything meaningful in the first place and were soundly beaten again by one of the big boys.
It's Edinburgh Derby time again for the 5th time this season and so far it's 2 wins each...
Unfortunately, it was them who took the upper hand for the season in a back and forth game that could have gone either way!
Much better result against Dundee United and it was great to see Kyle Magennis get his first 90 minutes under his belt since returning from injury and he got himself on the scoresheet too!
With the youth intake about to drop any day now, I asked the board to invest in the junior coaching to which they happily obliged!
And only days later, the youth intake was announced. It has been described as a golden generation, but I'm just not seeing it! None of these players really stand out to me at the moment, but hopefully their development over the coming years will prove me wrong.
It was 3rd against 4th as we faced off against an overachieving St Mirren next...
A tight game between two sides that played a decent standard of football at times, but we just edged it with Christian Doidge bagging his first goal of the season.
Our penultimate game before the league splits in half saw us come from behind at Aberdeen to win. Some inspired subs (if I do say so myself) saw Scott and Mitchell come off the bench to score the winning goals.
And our final game of the regular 12 team season ends in defeat at home to Motherwell. It never should have though as we had 17 shots to their 5 and 62% possession, but not taking our chances haunts us again!
So as the season splits, we sit comfortably in 3rd place. No matter what our results are over the next 5 games, it's extremely likely we will remain there as we have a 13 point lead over St Mirren but are too far off to challenge the big 2, who look like they will go down to the wire for the title!
My best player and greatest asset for the future is without a doubt, left back Josh Doig. So it's bitterly disappointing to hear that he feels he has outgrown the club and will be edging for a move away this Summer.
I've told him I won't be actively looking to sell, but will consider bids if they come in. Right now, I'll take solace in the fact nobody seems interested.
Meanwhile, Aberdeen could be looking at some huge investment if their takeover bid comes off. This could be a game changer and bring them right into contention next season if it happens!
Our first game of the so called Championship group will be against St Mirren. We haven't lost to them this season, but every game has been really close with a 1-1 draw and two 1-0 wins...
A few more goals this time round, a good performance and a good win!
Demetri Mitchell's blockbuster strike was enough to earn us another victory over Dundee United in our next game!
The ex Manchester United and Blackpool winger has done a decent job for us this year contributing with 7 goals. I'd have like to see more assists from him though. There is a new signing on their way this Summer on a freebie and Mitchell might not get so much game time next year, so I still need to decide whether to cash in on him in the transfer window or not.
Rangers came into our next game knowing that if they failed to beat us, then their title hopes were all over, so they had a lot more to play for than we did...
But it was still a spirited performance from my lads and we only fall to a very narrow defeat!
But we weren't so spirited against Ross County in our penultimate game. In fact it looked like the lads were already on holiday, but I can't really blame them when we have nothing to play for.
Our last game of the season would be against the newly confirmed champions, Celtic! We have lost all three prior meetings with them this year, but with them hopefully being on the beers celebrating for the last week, I wondered if we could finish the campaign with a bang...
It finished in an underwhelming bore draw. However, we had our chances to win this game and a couple of really bad misses when we were one on one with the keeper cost us a winning finish to the season. However, it's the first time in 4 games that we've picked up a point against Celtic and we'll take it!
So as we've known for a quite a while now, it's a 3rd placed finish for us and we were definitely 'the best of the rest' this season, by quite some way. It ensures we qualify for the qualifying stages of the Europa League next season.
Scottish Premiership = 3rd (qualified for Europa League)
Scottish Cup = Knocked out in 4th round by Hearts (competition won by Rangers)
Betfred Cup = Knocked out in semi final by Hearts (competition won by Celtic)
Europa Conference League = Knocked out in 2nd qualifying round by Stjarnan (competition won by Tottenham)
Although we had a successful season in the league, our cup performance was not so great and it was disappointing to be knocked out of both the domestic cups by our fiercest rivals. The squad stats show that most of the team performed above average, although I'd like to have seen more hitting the benchmark of 7.0 minimum average rating across the season. The player of the season in my eyes is centre back, Ryan Porteous. He was sensational all year round and when you consider our captain and his centre back partner, Paul Hanlon, missed a large proportion of the season, he really had to step up and he did! He scored 7 goals for the club too, getting on the end of corners and free kicks! Talking of goals, not a single player reached double figures and our top scorer was actually Demetri Mitchell with 9! American midfielder, Chris Mueller had an impressive year as he contributed 8 goals and 9 assists, whilst is was left back Josh Doig who led the assist charts with 10.
Another player that really stepped up this season when Paul Hanlon got injured was Harry Clarke. He was here on loan from Arsenal mainly as a squad rotation and backup player, but he ended up playing 20 league games for us and performed admirably, earning him the Scottish Players Young Player of the Year award!
The Best 11...
The Awards...
Demetri Mitchell was also named in the Premiership Team of the Year. The only player outside of Rangers and Celtic to make the team.
A key part of our attacking play this season was our ability to dribble with the ball. Only Rangers and Celtic dribbled the ball with more success than we did! It's something we'll look to continue to capitilise on next season.
Our wide men have been instrumental in our attacking play too, as we are shown to cross the ball more than any other team in the league and with a decent level of accuracy too.
After a good season, the dressing room atmosphere is good and the support of my management is strong.
The Commercials...
The plan this Summer is to strengthen wherever we can. I'd like to improve the goalkeeper position and bring in a striker that will be more prolific at this level. If I can improve anywhere else then it will be a bonus. The board are backing me with a decent little budget of £4 million to spend and I should be able to bring in a couple of decent players with this.
It's great to see the board investing money into the training facilities at the club too! All of this will contribute in our long term goal of challenging Rangers and Celtic!
Six players were released from the club this Summer, with the most notable being Scott Allan. He couldn't agree a new deal with us as I wasn't prepared to make him an important player as he won't be my first choice in the advanced playmaker role. He was on £3k per week as well to bench warm most weeks, so I was happy to let him go.
NEW SIGNING; I pinpointed at the end of last season that we put a lot of crosses into the box and with a good degree of accuracy. Therefore, I wanted to bring in a big striker with strong jumping/heading ability to get on the end of them. The man I have gone for is 27 year old, Jonson Clarke-Harris, who comes in from Peterborough. He's a tall, brave, aggressive striker who should be able to rough up opposition centre backs and I am convinced he can do well for us. Also, he was dirt cheap at just £86k!
NEW SIGNING; Bolstering the midfield was also a key area for me this Summer and I wanted a ball winner with a good work rate. Will Vaulks was a regular in the Cardiff side, playing 37 times in the Championship last season, and I managed to pick him up for just £165k. He'll be an important member of the team for us this season!
PLAYER SOLD; Darren McGregor is 36 years old now and was used sparingly last season. When he did play, he was pretty average too, so it was time to move him on. He joins Leyton Orient for £5k.
NEW SIGNING; With Scott Allan leaving the club this Summer, I needed to bring in another attacking midfielder to push Kyle Magennis for his place in the team. It's going to be an aim of this save to keep a decent Scottish contingent in the team, so where I can and if they are good enough, I'll be looking at Scottish players for my squad. Scott Fraser had a good season with Charlton last year, scoring 12 goals and getting 9 assists in League One, so he should prove well worth the £650k I forked out to bring him back to Scotland.
LOAN SIGNING; I'm always on the lookout for a good little loan signing on the cheap and Teddy Jenks has been allowed to come here for the season from Brighton, with no contribution to his wages or any monthly fee. He'll bolster my options in midfield and provide essential cover in the centre of the park.
NEW SIGNING; We have a new goalkeeper! St Johnstone were almost relegated from the Premiership last year, but their keeper Zander Clark still managed an average rating above 7.0 and made 211 saves in the league alone! I moved to snap him up (especially with him being Scottish as well) for a fee of £1.2 million.
And it was actually a new record transfer fee for the club!
With the squad now taking shape, the board sit me down to discuss their expectations for the upcoming season. Again, a top 5 finish in the league will suffice, but they want to see an improvement in the domestic cups and we should be aiming to get to at least the semi finals of both!
NEW SIGNING; More attacking reinforcements for my wide midfielder roles and this guy is a gem because he can play both sides and use both feet effectively. He's a pretty good player too to be fair and I'm interested to see what he can do for us! Welcome Milos Pantovic from Bochum as we immediately break our own transfer record fee again for £1.4 million.
NEW SIGNING; My final signing for now at least is the free transger of Robbie Brady. I agreed this one back in January with the player after he had decided he wanted a move away from Bournemouth. He brings valuable experience at the very top level in England and has previously commanded fees in excess of £10 million (when moving from Norwich to Burnley).
With the season breaking mid way for the World Cup this year, the league campaign starts early and it only left us time for 4 pre season friendlies for the new players to bed in.
The season preview shows that again we are predicted to finish 3rd, but this year the bookies actually make us shorter odds at 25/1 to win the title than the 50/1 we were last year. They recognise that we have strengthened over the Summer, so hopefully the players can prove them right.
St Johnstone only narrowly avoided relegation last year by winning the relegation playoff game, so we couldn't have asked for an easier start really...
Robbie Brady steals the show on the opening day as he lands a debut hat trick! Brilliant performance to inspire the rest of the lads to a win and we kick things off with 3 points. Worth noting that Brady could have made it 4 as well when he hit the post in the dying seconds of the match!
Three defeats and a draw against Rangers last season and these are the games we will always judge ourselves by to see if we are progressing and closing the gap on the top 2...
And we lost again. It was actually a very even game, with the only difference being the quality of strikers. Theirs took their chances and ours squandered a few good opportunities.
Even the media spotted the difference between the two sides.
Arbroath are the newly promoted side and the one's most expect to be the whipping boys this season...
Now we didn't exactly give them a whipping on the scoreline, but the performance was the most dominant I've seen under my management. With better finishing, we'd have scored 5 or 6 here! Glad to have got the 3 points in the end though!
We were even more dominant in our next game against Dundee in the Betfred Cup, recording 23 shots on goal to their 6 and having 56% possession! However, our strikers were again poor in front of goal and we have to settle for a 0-0 draw after 90 minutes! I told them I expected better in extra time and not to leave this to the lottery of pens, but they couldn't deliver and we are knocked out of the competition at the first hurdle!
I'm still in disbelief! Just look at those stats and I've never seen match ratings so high on every player after losing a game!
We HAD to do better in front of goal in our next game. It was the first leg of our Playoff qualifier against Red Star Belgrade in the Europa League! I desperately wanted us to make the group stages of the competition this year...
But we've left ourselves with it all to do in the second leg after suffering defeat our in Serbia. Our strikers really are not good enough!
Or maybe we're just rubbish in cups, because back in the league we were on fire against Ross County!
The question was...could we replicate such a performance to turn around our tie against Red Star and get ourselves into the Europa League Group Stage...
The answer was no! Despite battering their goal for 90 minutes, again our finishing lets us down! My strikers are the most frustrating I think I've ever had!
The silver lining is that we will be playing in a European competition this year as losing the Playoff sees us drop down into the group stages of the Europa Conference League. We were 3rd seeds though so I didn't expect the easiest of draws, but we've actually been handed a group that I think we can progress from...as long as we can get our act together in cup competitions that is.
LOAN SIGNING; With concerns over the quality of my strikers to get the job done in front of goal, I turned to the loan market to bring in Brentford's Marcus Forss in the hope that he can provide some stern competition up top. I think he has every opportunity to become our number 1 striker this year.
No mucking about and Forss went straight into the starting lineup in the hope he could show my strikers how it's done! He didn't score but did bag 2 debut assists as we beat Dundee United 4-3. It was a very up and down game that saw me go through a number of emotions as we raced to a 2-0 lead before falling 3-2 behind and then eventually winning 4-3!
After 5 games, there are only two teams above us....no points for guessing who! Our league campaign has started in good fashion with a single defeat coming at the hands of Rangers, winning our other 4!
OUTGOING LOAN; Transfer deadline came and I allowed Christian Doidge to join Sunderland on loan. With the arrival of Marcus Forss on loan, I don't need him and he's been pretty shocking to say the least anyway. Hopefully he can impress at Sunderland and they will buy him at the end of the season.
Our next game would pit us against Motherwell in the league, a team that beat us last time we met...
And they went and done us again! Another game we should never have lost on the balance of play and for once it was our defence that let us down rather than our front men!
Meanwhile, in the Europa Conference League, we start our group stage in the worst possible way out in Cyprus!
Going into a league game on the back of 2 defeats wasn't ideal in the slightest and I held out little hope we could get a result against the champions...
But against all the odds, we finally record our first win over Celtic! We had to ride our luck at times, but that's always going to be the case against them, but ground out a really impressive victory!
It gave us the confidence boost we needed going into our next Europa Conference League game against Slovakian side, MSK Zilina. This would be our 6th European competition match under my management and we were still searching for our first win...
And we finally got it! A solid performance in front of our home support and finally we're off the mark!
Our inconsistency was quickly highlighted again though as back in the league we are completely dominated by our fierce rivals Hearts and lucky to only lose 1-0! They should have had 3 or 4 with the chances they had, whilst we only managed 3 shots on their goal in the whole match!
Time for a tactical switch up! We dominate a lot of games, but the quality of chances we create isn't good enough and although we are having 50-60% of possession and more than 15 shots on goal in most games, the number of clear cut chances created in most games is 0. Also, I feel playing one single formation all the time is making it too easy for teams to figure us out. I've therefore created a new 4-1-2-3 and a 4-4-2 to mix things up a bit and offer different options for different games.
Looking at my scouting team's pre match reports for the European game against Athletic Club Bilbao showed that they generally play a 4-4-2 so I didn't want to match them on formation as I felt like for like they had stronger players than us. I also noticed that they are most vulnerable to facing a 4-1-2-3 creating a clear cut chance every 29 minutes, but having a clear cut chance against them every 20 minutes. It therefore made sense to start with that setup against them...
Now although we lost the game, we have every reason to be encouraged from this, especially considering it was the first time we'd ever played this tactic. We matched Athletic in every department and nobody would have begrudged us a draw from this game and it would have been fully deserved. We very nearly got it too when Scott Fraser headed home an equalizer in the 87th minute, only for it to be ruled out for the narrowest of offsides!
Based on the performance, I thought I'd stick with the same tactic for the next league game against Dundee, albeit with a few personnel changes due to tiredness in the squad...
One of those changes saw Jonson Clarke-Harris come into the starting lineup and the striker's first half double had us in command at the break! An early goal from Dundee after the break made for a nervy 2nd 45 minutes, but we hung on and got the win which sees us get a little revenge over the side that knocked us out of the Betfred Cup.
We couldn't follow it up against St Mirren though in a game that was described by the commentary team as an extremely forgettable draw!
Another bore draw followed at home to Aberdeen! I was really annoyed with this one as they got exactly what they came for with an extremely negative setup. Aberdeen played 3 centre backs, 2 wing backs and 2 defensive midfield players in this game. If that's not setting up for a draw, I don't know what is, and I feel sorry for their fans having to watch such sh** football every week! As you can tell, I'm not bitter at all!
So after playing everyone once in the league, we're 3rd in the Premiership behind the big 2!
St Johnstone are bottom of the league with just 1 win from their opening 11 games...
So this was an incredibly disappointing result! And if it wasn't for a last gasp equalizer, it would have been even worse!!
It wasn't exactly inspiring going into a game against Rangers...
But my lads were in determined mood to prove to me that they are much better than that! It was the game of my Hibs career so far as we batter Rangers on their own turf!
No such luck in replicating it against Athletic Bilbao in the Europa Conference League though!
It means that we are all but out of the competition with 2 games left.
We consoled ourselves with a win at Arbroath back in the Scottish Prem. We left it late though...way too late for my liking!
On a sour note, we lose one of our best central midfielders for a couple of months!
With us being virtually out of the Europa Conference League already, I took my second string to Slovakia to take on Zilina...
We were still the better side, but could only manage a draw.
The second string got a run out for our final group game against APOEL too and it ended in another draw.
All in all, Europe has been a bit of a disappointment for us again this season!
We then had a 2 month break for the World Cup, which was won by Italy! A World Cup that England didn't even qualify for!
As we came back to action, our first 4 league games after the break offered some varied results with 2 wins and 2 defeats! The Celtic one can be forgiven, but that was a really bad result against Ross County!
We're still an easy 3rd though as this season seems to be repeating last!
Next up was the famous Edinburgh Derby and so far in my career, Hearts have definitely had the better of our rivalry and came into this one on a 3 game winning streak over us...
So it was great to bring that to an end and with such a convincing win as well!
Dundee are bottom of the league and having an awful season so far...
But we still couldn't beat them! Absolute rubbish!
Not for the first time this season though, we quickly put a disappointing result right behind us with a good win in our very next game. St Mirren were no match for us here! Great result, great performance!
That leads us into the Scottish Cup 4th Round and we had been handed a really tough tie against Rangers...
And what a game it was!! 1-0 down to 2-1 up and with 26 minutes to go, we went down to 10 men and it all became about holding on! With 13 minutes to go, we were down to 9 men and it became about holding on harder!! They got the equalizer with a minute to go and forced extra time! I thought there was no chance we could hold on for another half an hour...but we showed incredible heart and did! Because of our resilience alone, we deserved the penalty shootout win!
Unfortunately, all that effort really took it out of the players and the game against Aberdeen back in the league came only 3 days later. We hadn't recovered properly and with a weakened side fielded, we fell to defeat.
We waste no time putting that bad day at the office behind us though, beating St Johnstone in our very next game! It wasn't the easiest of victories for sure, but we got it done!
LOAN SIGNING; Transfer deadline day brought about a new loanee to the club. I wanted another striker to give extra cover in those games when I want to play two up top and 19 year old Johnny Kenny was available from Celtic, so he'll join up with the squad for the rest of the campaign and is likely to get his share of game time.
He was carrying a minor injury and wouldn't be ready for the game against Rangers...
But his arrival seemed to spark an inspired performance from Jonson Clarke-Harris up top who bagged two goals and an assist as we beat the Glasgow giants for the 3rd time this season (twice in the league and once in the cup).
After beating Rangers, it was no surprise that we would go into the game against Arbroath as hot favourites...
But it was surprising that we didn't win the game! So frustrating after such a massive result, to come out with such a poor one straight after!
I gave the lads a kick in after the game back in the changing room and I ridiculed them in the post match interview publicly too, in the hope it might bring about a much better performance against Dundee United in our next game...
Safe to say it worked as we record our biggest ever win under my management - a pretty ridiculous result to be fair! It was Marcus Forss who was the star man on the day, but it was good to see Kenny getting a debut goal off the bench too!
It moves both of our first choice strikers into the top 5 in the race for the golden boot! Last year, none of our strikers got their goals tally into double figures so this is really good to see!
With 7 games of the regular season to go before the league split, it leaves us in 2nd behind Celtic, although Rangers and Ross County can close in and take over us if they win their games in hand.
For our next match, we turn our attentions to the Scottish Cup and a 5th round tie against Ross County...
The message was clear before kick off...pick up where we left off against Dundee United. And Marcus Forss most certainly did as his first half double had us in front at the break and cruising with an extra man to hand. Forss completed his hat track just after the hour mark to put the tie firmly to bed, before Johnny Kenny came off the bench to add a 4th and Chris Mueller rounded off the rout with his 10th goal of the season (in all comps).
Back in the league, our next fixture gave us a quick run out against Ross County again! After just hammering them 5-0 in the cup, I felt confident of our a positive result...
The day before the game, we suffered a big setback for the remainder of our season though as we lose Josh Doig for the next 2-3 months! Gutting and he'll be sorely missed!
Even without Doig available though, we record another easy win over County!
Just as we were starting to look unbeatable, we were beaten by 10th placed Motherwell in a thriller for the fans! Poor from us though and we must do better!
There would be no better stage than the Edinburgh Derby to put that behind us and get back to winning ways though...
And that we did! Johnny Kenny was the catalyst for us turning the game on it's head as he came off the bench to score the equalizer and then set up the winner. Kenny also had a goal disallowed in injury time as well!
I've been playing our 4-4-2 formation over the last few games and my strikers are thriving under it. They both finished 1 and 2 in the Player of the Month award for February!
We'd need them to be at their absolute best if we were going to get anything out of our next game against the league leaders...
And they were both bang on form again, but it was Milos Pantovic who will receive the main plaudits after it was his injury time wonder strike that saw us record a fantastic win here!
Kilmarnock are fighting hard in the Championship this year for promotion, sitting in 3rd, so they would come into our Scottish Cup Quarter Final full of confidence that they could give us a game...
And to be fair to them, they did give us a game, but we proved a little too strong in the end and advance to the semi final where we've been handed a favourable draw against League One side, Queen's Park.
For now though, it was back to the Premiership and relegation battlers Dundee FC...
Marcus Forss enjoyed himself as we gave them a hiding!
It's a result which guarantees we will enter some form of European competition again next season.
This year's youth intake is an average one and at this stage only 15 year old goalkeeper, Rhyan Lynch, looks like he may have the potential to one day play in the first team.
Our penultimate game before the league split resulted in an easy win over St Mirren.
And we followed that up with a good victory over Aberdeen as well!
The league now splits and our final 5 games will determine whether we can leapfrog Rangers into 2nd place or not!
Before we play our last 5 league games, we had the semi final of the Scottish Cup and as we took on League One opposition, we had to fancy that we would make it through...
There were no doubts as we dominated from start to finish!
No other than Celtic will await us in the final at the end of the season!
Now back to them league games and the first would be against 4th placed Ross County who have had an amazing season so far...
It wasn't exactly the start to our run in that I'd anticipated!
Luckily, Rangers lost as well, so we're still very much in the running for 2nd place. Although their defeat did hand the title to Celtic again.
Hopefully, having already wrapped up the league, they wouldn't be entirely 'up for it' against us in our next game...
No such luck! We were well and truly trounced and this doesn't bode well for the Cup Final in a few weeks time!
I demanded a better performance against Hearts...
Much better!!
Rangers were up next and they had once again opened up a 4 point gap over us, so we had to win to keep any hopes of jumping above them and finishing 2nd alive...
But it wasn't to be! We were very much in the game up until Delferriere's sending off on 39 minutes, but after that it only ever looked like there would be one winner of this game!
It meant our last game of the season against St Mirren was a bit of a nothing one, with 3rd place now confirmed...
And it was a pretty boring draw to round things off.
So it's 3rd place for us again behind Celtic and Rangers. As with last season, there was a big gap back to 4th place and we are firmly cementing our place as the 'best of the rest'. We will try hard to push on and close that gap further next season!
We would conclude the season with the Scottish Cup Final and we knew we'd be up against it, playing Celtic. However, we've beaten them twice this season so far, so there was no reason why we couldn't defy the odds again...
But they had too much for us. The scoreline flattered them a bit though as the last two goals came in injury time when we threw more men forward looking for an equalizer.
Scottish Premiership = 3rd (qualified for Europa League)
Scottish Cup = Runners Up (competition won by Celtic)
Betfred Cup = Knocked out in 2nd round by Dundee FC (competition won by Rangers)
Europa League = Knocked out in Playoff by Red Star Belgrade (competition won by Leicester City)
Europa Conference League = Knocked out in Group Stage (competition won by Gladbach)
Lots of my players performed better on an individual basis this season, but the in particular area of improvement was definitely up front. Jonson Clarke-Harris finished 3rd in the golden boot with 22 league goals, whilst Forss was just behind him with 20 goals in the league. Milos Pantovic justified his record transfer fee as he bagged 11 assists and 8 goals in his first year at the club. This likes of Scott Fraser and Will Vaulks haven't settled as well as I'd hoped and have both been disruptive in the dressing room too, so I will likely bin them both off this Summer, as I don't want 'problem' players at the club. The defence again impressed, with the emergence of 21 year old Allan Delferriere at centre back being the highlight! He became a first team regular and held down an average rating of 7.18 to impress in his first season in the senior squad.
The Best 11...
Our attacking play this season was well above the league average in nearly every area! We'll be looking to focus on an attacking style next season as it's definitely one of our key strengths.
And our shooting has been impressive this year!
After another decent season, things in the dressing room are good and there's still plenty of support for my management of the club!
The Awards...
For the 2nd season in a row, we had an on loan youngster that won the Young Player Of The Year award. Last season it was Harry Clarke and this season it was Teddy Jenks.
And for the 2nd season, just one of my players makes the Team of the Year. This season it was striker, Jonson Clarke-Harris.
The Commercials...
We won't have massive money to improve the squad this season, but with a 4-4-2 being the preferred formation for next year, I will need to make some changes. So I'll be looking to move certain players on and if I can maximise on the transfer fees coming in, it should give me enough to play with to bring some new players in.
Of the players that were released from the club this season, the one worth a mention is Lewis Stevenson! The club legend has been here throughout his entire career and made 437 league appearances for Hibs!
PLAYER SOLD; Scott Fraser only signed for me last Summer, but he was a bitter disappointment last year and barely featured in the 2nd half of the season, so became increasingly p1ssed off as well. His time here has been short lived and he moves to Luton for £125k.
PLAYER SIGNED; My first signing of the Summer was centre back, Chris Mepham. He is going to strengthen the back line considerably and will be a very important player for me over the coming years I'm sure! I forked out £100k to bring him here from Bournemouth, which may prove to be a bargain!
PLAYER SIGNED; Next through the door was a central midfielder from Brighton, as Tudor Baluta signs for a fee of £145k. He will be a squad rotation player throughout the year and should provide key cover.
PLAYER SOLD; With a central midfielder coming in, it was time for another to leave. Ewan Henderson has played a bit part for me over my first two seasons but he hasn't progressed as much as I'd hoped. I felt the £550k fee that St Johnstone were prepared to pay for him was a good offer and off he goes.
PLAYER SIGNED; With Henderson's departure, it saw a Scotsman leave the club, so I quickly moved to bring another fellow Scot in. Scott Allardice has had a decent season for Inverness in the Championship and deserves an opportunity to step up to the top tier. I paid them £275k to give him that shot.
The board's expectations for the upcoming season seem reasonable enough. In Europe, we will be looking at getting to the group stages of the Europa League this year and I'm really hoping we can actually give a good showing in European competition this season, as it's been pretty poor so far.
LOAN SIGNING; Last year, Markus Forss was a fantastic loan signing from Brentford and he got us 20 goals up top. However, they were unwilling to renew, so I have turned back to the market to see if I can find another little gem to get in on loan. I'm hoping Aston Villa's Louie Barry will be that man!
PLAYER SOLD; Will Vaulks has been a disruptive influence this season, which is really disappointing as I had high hopes for him at the club. He barely played in the 2nd half of the season out of principal for his constant whining and moaning. So I'm glad to see the back of him as he joins Rotherham for £250k.
PLAYER SIGNED; One area of the squad that we are a little light on quality is the right back position. Paul McGinn probably isn't good enough for this level anymore and at 32 he is coming towards the back end of his career. My plan was to move him on and his replacement will be fellow Scot, Liam Smith, who comes in from Dundee United for a fee of £1.1 million. On the plus side, he can cover the left back position if we're desperate as well.
PLAYER SIGNED; Backup keeper Matt Macey decided to leave the club as his contract came to an end, so I needed to bring someone in as cover for Zander Clark. The man I turned to is Forest Green's 27 year old keeper, Luke McGhee. He was available for a dirt cheap fee of just £43k and he looks pretty decent...certainly better than Macey so it's a good deal from our perspective.
So as we head into this season's pre season friendlies, this is the squad at the moment and we're looking good at this stage.
PLAYER SOLD; Dylan Tait looked like a promising youngster when I got here, but he is 21 now and hasn't come on as much as I'd have liked, so he leaves the club for Livingston for a fee of £80k.
PLAYER SOLD & SIGNED; Next up was a deal that saw two players and some money exchange hands. Joe Lolley has been on my radar for the past 2 seasons and I like him and think he could do a good job for us in Scotland. So when Preston came in and offered us £175k (rising to £500k) including Lolley in the deal to sign 19 year old Jack Brydon, I was happy to accept.
PLAYER SOLD; One player I wasn't initially planning to sell this Summer was Jake Doyle-Hayes, who has been a first team regular for me. However, he hasn't performed to the highest level and when Reading were prepared to pay £1.4 million for him, I felt the offer was too good to turn down.
PLAYER SOLD; Another player I wasn't planning on selling but received an offer to good to refuse was winger, Chris Mueller. He joins Angers in France for £1.9 million. He will be more missed of the two as he has contributed 14 goals and 12 assists in the league over the past 2 seasons.
PLAYER SIGNED; Selling Doyle-Hayes and Mueller did raise the funds for me to make a marquee signing though and I'm really pleased he's Scottish! Liam Henderson has been a first team regular for Empoli in Serie A, making 72 league appearances, during which he maintained an average rating of 7.04 and bagged a goal and 14 assists. The fact he's been doing well in Serie A means he should absolutely tear it up for us in the Scottish Premiership. I smashed the transfer record to bring him here as he signs for £3.6 million.
This year's friendly schedule was a positive one with no defeats on record. Solid wins against Nurnberg and Millwall are the highlights, whilst the draw against Ajax was also a great result in preparation for the new campaign.
Pre season did suffer one major setback though as my number one keeper will miss the first few games of the season!
According to the bookies, we have three of the most talented youngsters in the league this year. I was surprised that 19 year old striker Ethan Laidlaw was as short as 10/1 as I only promoted him to the first team this year, but he definitely looks good enough to have an impact for sure.
With the season about to get underway, the preview shows that again Rangers and Celtic are miles out in front, but now we are the only side they think will get even remotely close to them. Still the media dream 11 is dominated by Rangers and Celtic players and I'm still waiting to see the day when one of our own might edge their way in.
One player I had a decision to make over this Summer was striker, Christian Doidge. In season one when I was playing with one striker, he was really bad...I mean, awful! Last year he went out on loan to Sunderland in the English Championship where he didn't really set the world alight, scoring 6 times in 32 games. In the end I decided to give him one last shot at the club and see if he could fit into a 2 man setup up front and after a decent pre season, he would start up top for the season opener against Dundee United.
And with a chip on his shoulder and a point to prove, Doidge took all the plaudits on day 1 of the new season as his first half hat trick sent us well on our way to a big opening day victory!
However, we followed it up with a really poor result at home to Aberdeen on matchday 2!
Celtic, Rangers and St Johnstone all maintain early 100% records.
In the Betfred Cup, our 2nd round fixture would be against lower league opposition in the form of Raith Rovers...
And with a heavily rotated side, we despatched of them pretty easily.
In this year's Europa League Playoff, we were drawn against Genk. The first leg out in Belgium would be my 100th game as Hibs manager.
It wasn't the happy occasion I'd imagined, although it's not the worst result in the world and we have a chance of turning this around in the home leg!
Before that we had a league game against Motherwell to play. They had proven a bit of a nemesis for us, winning 3 of the last 4 meetings...
But not this time as we take care of business in confident manner!
Transfer deadline day would be interrupted for us by the 2nd leg against Genk and I put all my focus into that before any transfer business...
And we've only gone and done it! A fantastic turnaround in this one and we will be playing Europa League football this season!
PLAYER SOLD; One player that didn't feature for us was Kyle Magennis. He was down in Stoke agreeing personal terms for his £6 million move to Stoke. Granted he is one of our best players but that is a very big transfer fee for us!
In fact, it was a new record for the club!
The draw for the Europa League saw us come in as 4th seeds, so we always knew we were going to get a tough group. And it certainly won't be easy for us!
Back to domestic action for now though and we faced a St Johnstone side that had started their season in unbeaten fashion with 2 wins and a draw...
And they remain undefeated as we are unable to make our home advantage count and labour to a draw.
I wanted to see better in our first Edinburgh Derby of the season...
But I didn't as we labour to a bore draw.
Our 3rd draw in a row came at home to Real Betis in the first game of our Europa League Group Stage. Now this was a draw to be proud of.
And talking of proud, my lads filled me with pride as we returned to Premiership action to face Rangers and come away from Ibrox with a 3-1 win! A fantastic result for us, especially after we've struggled to put the ball in the back of the net lately.
Six games into the league campaign and it's ridiculously tight in these early stages with just 5 points seperating 1st to 8th! Still early days though and the next 6-8 games will start to shape the division I'm sure!
Meanwhile, in the Betfred Cup, we're through to the semi final after a good away win at Ross County. We were on our A game here and didn't give them a sniff of our goal throughout!
Now I do have an issue at the moment with injuries! With 6 players currently out for anything between 2-3 weeks, 4 of these would be guaranteed first team starters, so it remains to be seen how we cope over the next 3 games!
Safe to say that we missed them in the first one as we lose away at Dundee! We didn't play terribly to be fair...we just missed that something a little bit extra!
Next up we were out in Switzerland for matchday 2 of the Europa League group...
And what a result we managed to pull off out there! It was no fluke either as we absolutely battered Basel in their own back yard and honestly could have had 6 or 7 here!
With such a morale boosting win in Europe behind us, surely we would come back to Scotland and beat Livingston...
Or not! ******* rubbish!!
But against all the odds, we bounce back to beat the champions and for the first time under my management we kept a clean sheet against them as well!
When you look at our results this season so far, this is turning out to be one ******* weird season! We have beaten the likes of Celtic and Rangers, but then lose to the likes of Livingston and Dundee who have been notorious strugglers over the past 2 seasons!
Our financial situation at the club is strong with over £10 million in the bank, so I turned to the board to invest in the training facilities again!
And on top of that, some more money has been pumped into the youth recruitment as well!
One area that we have made a marked improvement this season is in our performances in Europe! And again we impress with a really good draw out in Portugal!
At the half way stage, we have given ourselves a chance of qualifying for the knockout stages. Baring in mind we have played 2 away games as well!
Back in the league, we'd take on a Ross County side that had made just as indifferent a start to their campaign as we have...
And we played out a thrilling 3-3 draw. Although I'd like to have won this game, I have to be pleased with the point after we came back from 2-0 and 3-2 down to salvage something from the game!
St Mirren were up next...
And Jonson Clarke-Harris had a great game as his hat trick sealed a comfortable victory for us!
But we follow the pattern of this season and follow up a good result with a bad one as we lose to Aberdeen!
Back in the Europa League, we welcomed Braga to Easter Road and knew that if we could get at least a draw, we would stay very much in the hunt for qualification from the group...
And a draw is exactly what we got!
In the Premiership, we recorded a win over Dundee United. It was a must win really against a side that still remain on single figure points this season!
We're 6th after 13 games, but only 5 points off 2nd! There is no denying that this is the closest I have seen the league table after this many games with still only 12 points covering the top 8!
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