Nick Montgomery makes 'basic errors' Hibs admission and says Rangers incident was justice

The Hibees slip down to seventh after defeat at Ibrox and face big battle to reach top six

Hibs manager Nick Montgomery watches on as his team competed at Ibrox.

Hibs manager Nick Montgomery admitted his team made too many “basic errors” in the 3-1 defeat by Rangers and lamented the concession of the second goal at Ibrox seven minutes into stoppage time.

Myziane Maolida had drawn Hibs level two minutes into added-on time at the end of the first half to cancel out James Tavernier’s opener, only for Cyriel Dessers to head home on 45+7 minutes as Rangers regained the impetus. Rabbi Matondo netted a third towards the end of the match to seal the win and with Dundee winning 2-1 away at St Johnstone at the same time as Hibs were losing, Montgomery’s men have slipped down to seventh, a point behind the Dee. Hibs have two matches left before the split, at home to Saints and away at Motherwell, in the race to reach the top six.

“I thought in patches we played good football but not good enough today,” said Montgomery. “Against quality opposition, what you have you do is the basics well and stop crosses, pick up in the box and block shots at the edge of the box. We know they have quality players.

"I’m disappointed that we got back into the game and conceded in injury time, seven minutes and it was minute five or six. You just want to get in at half-time 1-1 and give yourself a platform to build on for the second half so to concede in the manner we did with a basic error ion the box, marking the wrong side is disappointing because the team talk is different at half time.

"The timing of the second goal really knocks you because you’ve worked so hard to get back into the game. Going in 1-1 as opposed to 2-1 down at half-time is a massive difference, both for the players’ mentality and for me as a coach for the team talk. But I thought we came out in the second-half and we created some good opportunities, but if you don’t take them and you don’t block shots at the edge of the box, you’re going to concede goals. We came here on the back of a good run and we now have two big games, starting with St Johnstone on Saturday.”

Montgomery was asked on his thoughts on a penalty award to Rangers in the first half after VAR advised referee David Dickinson to review an incident where Nectarios Triantis caught John Souttar in the face with a trailing arm. Dickinson subsequently gave it and while David Marshall saved James Tavernier’s effort, Scott Wright fired home the rebound, only for his effort to be cancelled out due to encroachment.

"You’re better not asking me,” replied Montgomery. “I’m probably disappointed to concede it but I’ve said that too often so I’ll leave it to everybody else to give their opinion on it. It was another good save from David Marshall from Tavernier which isn’t easy, and thankful there was a foot in the box so the goal was disallowed. That was a bit of justice. You need a bit of luck when you come places like this and that was maybe a bit we needed.”