Hibs' Thicot so sad to see Sol go keen to cement his place

STEVEN THICOT was gutted to see best mate Sol Bamba quit Hibs this week - but admitted that the Ivorian's departure could help him relaunch his own career at Easter Road.

The two defenders were almost inseparable during their spells at Hibs, with their families also getting to know one another on their trips over to Scotland, and spent most of their time before, during and after training with one another.

However Bamba's move to Leicester at the beginning of the January transfer window last weekend means that the pair's friendship will be limited to phone calls and e-mails for the time being.

Thicot said: "It is going to be very strange for me because he was my best friend at the club and the person that I was spending most of my time with after training.

"I have been there before because you have to get used to this kind of thing happening when you are a football player. It's just life that he has gone, it happens all of the time in football but I am not going to lie, I will miss my friend very much.

"We were together almost 24/7 here and when we were not at training or out doing something then we were on the phone to one another.

"He has been away since Saturday now and we have been on the phone just the same, so I know that our friendship will continue although we will not see each other quite as often.

He will also come back to Edinburgh because he has lived in Scotland for such a long time, so hopefully I can catch up with him when he is back here."

However Thicot, whose contract with Hibs is up in the summer, along with a number of his other team-mates, knows that he could now benefit from the gap left in the centre of defence by Bamba.

Thicot has featured just five times for the first team this season but may be called on more often now that Bamba is no longer part of the equation.

He was outstanding, despite the defeat to Hearts last weekend, and is hoping that manager Colin Calderwood will look to him to step into Bamba's shoes between now and the end of the season.

He knows though, that he won't be the only one eyeing up a permanent place in the side now and said: "Sol will leave a big hole in the side because he was a good player and he has got a lot of qualities.

"Sometimes though, when a player of that quality leaves, it can be a good thing for the club because everyone who is left behind wants to prove that they are good enough to replace him in the side.

"Everyone is going to want to show the manager that they are capable of coming in and doing just as good a job as Sol did for us.

"You never know, it might even mean that I get more games for Hibs - but the most important thing is that the team starts to get the right results again."

Thicot himself is free to talk to other clubs as he only has a few months left on his Hibs contract and could follow Bamba's example by heading for the exit door. However, for now, the 23-year-old is only interested in getting as many games under his belt as he possibly can in the remaining months of the season.

"I just want to play as much football as possible, getting games is the most important thing for a footballer, everything else comes second.

"If I am playing then I will be happy and we will just wait and see what happens from there."

The Frenchman admitted that he and the rest of his Hibs team-mates had been desperately disappointed to have thrown the points away in the dying minutes of last weekend's Edinburgh derby, having performed so well for the preceding 86 minutes at Tynecastle.

A late, late header from Kevin Kyle caused all of the damage and was the only time in the game that the Hibs defence looked in any danger of being breached.

A pinpoint cross from sub Arvydas Novikovas allowed Kyle to finish the move off at the back post and Thicot added: "We have not been too happy this week, especially with the way that we conceded the goal against Hearts and how late it came in the game as well.

"We had been working really hard for one another, and playing quite well I think, but then we let them score with just three or four minutes to go at Tynecastle.

"It was a very disappointing way to end the match because I think that a point would have been a fairer result for the spirit that we showed and the way that we played in a game that was away from home."

The disappointment of losing to their rivals aside, Thicot was one of Hibs' best players at Tynecastle at the weekend.

In the second half in particular he won almost every high ball into the box and did an admirable job of keeping Hearts winger David Templeton quiet; so much so, in fact, that the youngster was substituted 11 minutes from the end.

Thicot continued: "I think I won a lot of the headers in the box but, to be fair, Browny did help me quite a lot. He was telling me where he wanted me to be in the box for the set pieces and things like that, which worked out quite well.

"Obviously I am a defender so the rest of the time I just tried to do my job. I thought that I played quite confident up against David Templeton, I have seen him play on television although I didn't know how he would play against us. It was still hard because he is always trying to take you on, one against one, so it makes you stay on your toes all of the time.

"From that point of view it was good to play against him and I enjoyed it but the result at the end of the game was a huge disappointment to everyone."

The Easter Road side take on First Division Ayr United in the fourth round of the Scottish Cup just seven days after the derby. Thicot concedes that he doesn't know an awful lot about Brian Reid's side but believes that Hibs will have to be at their best to book their place in the next round of the competition.

"I know that they come from a place that is near Kilmarnock, after that I don't know too much about them," he admitted. "The manager and the backroom staff will make sure that we know all about them by the end of this week though, we will watch them on DVD and things like that so that we know how they are likely to play and line up against us and, after that, it is up to us to go out and do our best against them.

"The cup competitions are obviously very important to us and we want to do as well as possible, so the main thing for us is that we are in the next round of the cup by the end of the game on Saturday."