Calderwood says O’Connor ready despite private issues

GARRY O’Connor has become a magnet for all manner of negative headlines in the past week, most recently with the news that he will face a fraud charge after a claim he made on the back of his £100,000 Ferrari being written off in April. The 28-year-old may appear in danger of leading a car crash of a footballers’ life but he can be comforted that his Hibernian manager Colin Calderwood has no intention of swerving out of his way.

Calderwood had to defer to a Hibs press spokesperson at the club’s Tranent training ground yesterday when asked questions on issues in O’Connor’s private life that have now become all too public. In between being cut across for a PR line to be delivered to the effect that Hibs would not comment on any such matters with a court case – and not the fraud one – on a “related” matter pending, the Leith’s club’s manager did a decent job of explaining his reasoning for retaining O’Connor, a player who only last week championed the forward for a recall to a Scotland international set-up wherein he was also stalked by his troubles.

The one-time Lokomotiv Moscow and Birmingham City man seems sure to play at Dunfermline tomorrow. That would be entirely unrelated, of course, to the fact the striker’s three goals are the only ones scored in the Scottish Premier League by an Easter Road club currently propping it up.

“Gary is in the squad and I’ll make a decision on him,” Calderwood said when asked if he was concerned about the player being affected by the taunting he is sure to receive from opposition fans. “I’m not taking him out of my thoughts of playing him. All scenarios you think about and then you make your judgment call. We’ve three games in eight days and five in 15, we need everyone available. If we had one game in 45 days I would still be thinking of him.”

Calderwood stressed that he thinks through what is going on in the personal lives of all his players in deciding how best to handle them. He explained: “In broad terms, there can be all sorts of things. You try to be aware of everything with every player and try to understand everyone. You have players who will come in with a headache, or after their kids have been up all night, or whatever. There are all these problems you are aware of and take into consideration. They can affect you on the training ground and on a Saturday and become problematic going forward.”

Calderwood was circumspect about whether O’Connor is at that stage yet. “Training’s been okay; he trains okay,” he said. “I can only tell you from what I see on the training ground and how he is about it. He’s preparing for the game. The extra stuff is obviously sitting there in the background.”

In the background beyond O’Connor’s situation for Hibs is their lowest of the low status in the SPL table. And Calderwood, to his credit, doesn’t sidestep concerns over a dreadful start to the season that has yielded only four points from six games. He accepts that any failure to climb off the bottom in the coming weeks will feed the fans’ despair that is already bordering on insurrection. They would surely be tipped over the edge if, over the next week, Hibs cannot register a win in their games at East End Park, then Motherwell in the League Cup in midweek, and at home to Dundee United next weekend.

“It would be nice to get off and nice to get away from that tag,” Calderwood said. “That’s a couple of games we’ve been there. You wouldn’t want to be there too long or stay there. I think your allowance is the start of the season and the fact a victory might take you three or four places up. At the minute we can right it and right it quickly.”

Hibs had better do so. Or else the club’s new No 2 Billy Brown might hold off a bit before getting his tracksuit initialled.