Colin Calderwood faces fight to get erratic Hibs back on even keel

AFTER just half a dozen games it is hard to know what to make of Colin Calderwood's Hibernian. With three defeats, two wins and then another defeat in those games, there is an obvious inconsistency there, but that demerit hardly began the minute the former Scotland defender walked into Easter Road.

Indeed, it is hard to know what to make of Hibs since the spring of 2007, when the mood of celebration at the club following their Co-operative Insurance Cup win was swiftly dissipated by a player revolt. In the three-and-a-half years since then John Collins has departed, and Mixu Paatelainen and John Hughes have come and gone. All three managers had promising spells, but also had to contend with worrying dips in form.

Calderwood's reign to date has replicated that pattern in miniature. After those three initial losses, a sensational victory at Ibrox and then a home win over Motherwell looked like signs of real progress - but then came last week's 4-2 reverse at Inverness, where some of the defensive lapses which the new manager appeared to have cured were again in evidence.

"They sat back - they played as if they were the away team and let us come on to them," midfielder David Wotherspoon said of Caley Thistle. "We couldn't find the holes and the gaps to make anything. They just did us on the counter a couple of times and it was silly goals that we lost."

A Hibs team capable of emulating the caution and wiliness its manager showed as a player would not have been so vulnerable on the counter- attack, and would have been aware of Caley Thistle's preference for playing on the break.

Calderwood himself reckoned the Inverness match was not as bad as the defeat by the same score which his team suffered in his first match at the helm - "It was a different 4-2 defeat to the Aberdeen one", he said - but it was hard to see any discernible improvement in it. Indeed, given the manager had had time to get to know his players and impose some kind of defensive pattern on them, the loss in Inverness was arguably worse.

The Hibs squad are painfully aware of their inconsistency, but if they have precise ideas about how to cure it, they are not about to share them. "Everyone goes through it in football," Wotherspoon said. "You get your ups and downs. You just have to keep focused, keep a positive mind set and keep working away. "It's hard to look at (the league table] when you're down in the bottom six and were flying high last season. But you've got to get on with it - that's the way football works.

"I think we've shown in the last few games that we've got that ability and the team to be up there. We've got to keep working away and hopefully it will come."

Hibs certainly showed at Ibrox and at home to Motherwell that on their day they can beat some of the best teams in the league.But if they are to force their way back into the top six they will have to prove themselves equally capable of dealing with more modest opposition, such as the team they meet today, St Johnstone. Derek Riordan and Paul Hanlon are both suspended, and Valdas Trakys is doubtful because of injury. If the Lithuanian does miss out as well as Riordan, Calderwood will be very short of fire-power up front, but an enforced 4-5-1 line-up could actually help Hibs find the solidity which they were sorely lacking last week.

St Johnstone ended a run of four league defeats last weekend with a 1-0 win at Pittodrie, and are now level with Hibs on 14 points. Their 2-0 home win over the Edinburgh side at the start of last month spelled the end for Hughes.

Saints striker Peter McDonald is available after injury, and Jamie Adams plays his last match before a two-game ban. Manager Derek McInnes has to make a decision about the fitness of Liam Craig, Dave Mackay and Chris Millar.