Hibs turn the lights out on McLeish

Published on Monday 28 November 2005 01:47

A GAME Alex McLeish hoped might contribute to his rehabilitation instead supplied him with one of his darkest days as Rangers manager. An improvement in fortune had been suggested by Ross McCormack's equaliser last midweek in the Champions League but yesterday what has2 become alarmingly normal SPL service was resumed.

Porto is proved to have be simply a port in a storm. Rangers were yesterday blown further off course by a Hibs side who attacked at will, and who ended their own period of shoddy form with a performance of verve. The Easter Road side are now lodged comfortably in third position. Fittingly on a day when the club mourned the passing of a legendary former player the present day keepers of the flame produced an attacking display that saluted the feral memory of George Best.

Of course, by recalling memories of Best in a green and white shirt, the fans were also remembering an otherwise bleak period of relegation dog-fights. No such concerns for this incarnation, a team which more accurately resembles Hibs teams of far greater repute. They have stretched their lead over Rangers to 11 points, but, perhaps more significantly, saw their excellence yesterday rewarded on another front as well. Hearts are now within sight, just three points above them, while the summit, and Celtic, is only a further point's distance away.

Outside Easter Road a mini-memorial had appeared, with wreaths and shirts celebrating the memory of Best and the fact he could count this as one of the many homes from where he'd gone AWOL in his career. Observing this tribute was as touching as the minute's silence that was sabotaged in riotous - but perfectly acceptable - style. Best would have approved of the sustained bout of clapping and cheering which followed the request for a minute of silence. He'd have delighted, too, in the start his former team made as they contrived to trash the admittedly meagre expectations currently accorded Rangers. There aren't many who thought McLeish's team would sweep Hibs aside but few expected Rangers to engage so ineffectually with the task of saving their manager's job.

McLeish's faculties have not been so assaulted by barbed words that he is unable to act with decency. He described Hibs' first-half performance as the best faced by Rangers this season, which includes a game against Internazionale. Such an assertion does of course help deflect scrutiny from Rangers' own sorry predicament, but then Hibs deserved the credit most accepted they will duly have robbed from them by a preoccupation with McLeish's own position as Rangers manager. This was a Hibs side operating to maximum effect, and to their undoubted potential. Garry O'Connor and Derek Riordan are two players Rangers would dearly love to have in their own ranks, and, during the first half at least, when the strikers helped themselves to a goal each, there wasn't a single Hibs player who was inferior to his opposite man. Consequently, the opening half was as one-sided as any seen this season at Easter Road.

There were Rangers fans walking out of Easter Road by half-time. The very prescient might have considered returning west in an opening spell where Rangers struggled to string two passes together, never mind trouble Hibs keeper Zbigniew Malkowski. It got better in the second, but then it could not have got worse.

Barry Ferguson felt the urge to inspire his side but this imperative has vanished from his team-mates, and in the end this vigour ultimately harmed the skipper. He was sent-off for a second bookable offence, a late, tired challenge which sent Kevin Thomson sprawling. This was the final blast of a terrible trumpet that may sound a last post for McLeish before this week is out. Club historians were in a lather last night as they sought to calculate just how grim the statistics have become for the Ibrox club. The most apocalyptic of them all is the assertion that never before has a Rangers side made it through eight successive games without at least one win. Another directs us back to Victorian times. Not since 1891 have Rangers been unable to record a victory in the month of November.

But there was enough occurring in front of their very eyes to concern the Rangers fans. Francis Jeffers' attempt to end his scoring drought was allowed to struggle lamely on until half-time. Alex Rae was replaced after just 24 minutes, injured, perhaps, but a labouring force from the word go. He joins an Ibrox injury list currently numbered at ten, with Ferguson also due to miss Saturday's game against Falkirk through suspension. If his productive substitution against Porto had hinted at some providence being afforded the put-upon Rangers manager then yesterday planted McLeish back in a condemned man's narrative. He inhabited the usual poses of a manager. Arms were waved, and legs pumped in frustration. But he proved as ineffectual as his players.

There was a time when this stadium regularly rang out with fans bellowing his name. It did so again yesterday but the songs sung by the Hibs fans were informed by a wild delighting in his troubles. The sympathy and respect that had been vividly on display prior to kick-off evaporated within minutes. McLeish was baited, his players taunted, and the away fans humiliated. There had been numerous warnings of what was to come. Hibs might have been two up within the opening minutes, with Scott Brown an especially prominent sinner. He blasted wildly over when unmarked inside the box, but against this Rangers team one can be confident of another chance presenting itself before long.

It did. Ivan Sproule was the architect, beating Alan Hutton on the left. He bore down on the left, switched the ball to his right foot and played the ball across the face of the goal. Despite the efforts of Waterreus, the ball reached Riordan coming in at the back post. He did the necessary, lashing the ball high into the net after 17 minutes of consistent Hibs pressure.

The second goal was a master-class in forward play, devastating in its simplicity. O'Connor fed Riordan on the right, and continued his run into the box. When the ball arrived back into his path, as he clearly expected it would from Riordan, O'Connor transferred it into the bottom corner with a sweet volley. Ferguson halved the deficit 13 minutes after half-time with a deflected shot from just inside the box.

The final outcome - a defeat by one goal - was actually evidence of a blessing finally having been whispered in McLeish's ear.