Hibernian 0 - 1 Motherwell: Limp loss only a blip, says Stack

GRAHAM Stack is a persuasive conversationalist, but even he struggled to convince listeners that the Hibernian side who 8,000 or so had just witnessed reverting to their old, sluggish ways are improving.

Motherwell are now three points clear of Celtic in second place and deserve all the plaudits going after recovering from a brief stumble against St Johnstone last month. Had they beaten the visitors from Perth at Fir Park that day they would now be only four points behind leaders Rangers. We would then be obliged to talk about Stuart McCall’s side as potential championship contenders. Perhaps we already are. What Motherwell are currently managing to do is split the Old Firm although the chance of maintaining this arrangement in the long term was dismissed by Michael Higdon, one of their best players on Saturday. “It’s just nice to be between them at the moment,” the striker said. “It’s all about consistency. That’s why they are the best two teams, because they are consistent all the time.”

How such heady talk jarred with what Stack was required to focus on after another bad day for Hibs. The goalkeeper could be excluded from blame. In fact, he, together with his posts and bar, stood between Hibs and a multi-goal defeat. It might well have been 5-0 to Motherwell and then, surely, manager Colin Calderwood’s position would have become untenable. High up in the main stand his namesake Jimmy observed it all with a hawkish eye in his current line of employment as a pundit. There must be a few out-of-work managers studying the developments at Hibs with interest, which is a shame given the recent signs that they were turning the corner. Here, however, it was back to the same old sad story of whistles and boos at Easter Road.

Calderwood was the target as he departed down the tunnel at the end, and the players, too, were on the receiving end just after the half-hour mark, when Motherwell managed to string together about 40 passes without drawing a challenge worthy of the name from an opponent. Possibly the most damning comment of all was made by Calderwood afterwards. “We didn’t run hard enough,” he said, before adding: “We didn’t run.”

The long-suffering Hibs fans have perhaps come to accept the lack of invention in the side at present but they won’t tolerate a shortage of effort, hence the very obvious dissatisfaction. The biggest cheer from the home fans was when Leigh Griffiths prepared to enter the fray with just 15 minutes left. But by then the pattern of play was too firmly established, helped by Steve Jennings’ untroubled stewardship in midfield. Attention fell on him due to his recent arrest for an alleged betting scam but he fully justified Motherwell’s decision to keep playing him as police enquiries continue.

As well as the goal, Motherwell had umpteen other chances to score. A Junior Agogo effort, one he pulled just wide with eight minutes left, was as near as Hibs came to scoring. Stack’s point was that we should not let the improvement of last month be completely eclipsed by the wretchedness of this latest performance. He further argued that Hibs had been badly served by the timing of the international break. The home side were undone by a goal scored with astonishing ease by Motherwell after only eight minutes. Tom Hateley swung in a cross from the right. Given that the ball was swerving away from his goal Stack was right to presume his defence would deal with it. This was, however, wishful thinking. Sean O’Hanlon failed to make any attempt to cut the cross out and Jamie Murphy was rewarded for taking a chance at the far post. He barely had to jump when meeting the ball with his forehead. “As bad as any goal conceded in the Premier League, I guarantee you,” grumbled Calderwood afterwards.

He was again required to be brutally honest in his assessment of a Hibs performance which does not augur well ahead of their next three games, two of which are against Celtic. They travel to face St Mirren on Saturday having returned to a position of peril near the basement of the league. “There’s been an improvement,” claimed Stack, whose heroics on Saturday included a wondrous double save from a Stephen Craigan header and a Higdon drive. “Six games ago you would have looked at us and we looked like a poor side, no two ways about it.

“In the last five games we have done a lot better, there’s been an improvement. We went to Ibrox and got beaten but [we] could have got something from the game. At home today we were fully committed to applying pressure and getting out of the traps early on. But straight from kick-off we just did not get going. People say Motherwell were different class in the first half. I disagree – I thought we were poor. You find out about individuals on match day, certainly when we are in the position where we are now. When the suppoters turn, as they do at times and rightly so because we haven’t been good enough, you need a few of the old heads, myself included, to rally the lads.”

Stack did admit that Hibs had taken “a step backwards” against Motherwell, after an unbeaten run of five games in September. “I probably feel that the break has come at a bad time for us,” he said. “We still really believe we can finish in the top six.”