Interview: John Hughes, Hibs manager

HANG ABOUT Hibs' East Mains training centre long enough and the questions will come.

"What question am I always asking you, Chipper?" John Hughes quizzes his long-time assistant Brian Rice the second he walks into the office. "How are we going to revolutionise Scottish football?" he responds in the tone that adds credence to the claim he has heard that query on an almost daily basis for the past seven years and underlines the fact he has yet to come up with an answer that will silence it.

"Even this morning, I was having a conversation with Ian Murray and Colin Nish over breakfast and I was asking them, 'what can we do to make this club great?'," adds the Hibs manager. "I'm always looking for answers, new ideas. I have my vision and my beliefs on how we can improve this squad of players, how we can build on what we have done this season but I'm always looking for that something extra, something that will radically change the face of Scottish football. We can't sit still, I'm looking for something that will give us the edge. Maybe I'm a dreamer but it's your dreams that take you where you want to go."

Not just dreams. There's an element of graft, a need for an inherent will to succeed and a mental toughness that all complement talent, inherited and honed.

"No disrespect to Mixu (Paatelainen] or anybody here before me, but any time you played a Hibs team you felt they were soft, and at my old club I would tell the players to get in about Hibs because I knew they would let us play and, if I'm honest, we still have a bit of that about us but that's the culture we are trying to change and it doesn't happen overnight. Look at the likes of Manchester United. When Sir Alex Ferguson arrived, it probably started with someone like Bryan Robson, who passed it onto Pallister and Bruce and they passed it on to Keane and Giggs and Neville and Scholes and now it's Fletcher and Evans and Rooney and all the younger ones coming through. Changing a culture and the mindset of a club takes time."

He is looking back on a season which started with him being installed in his dream job, evolved into a promising campaign which saw the Easter Road club vying with the Old Firm for the top two league slots, and threw up a Scottish Cup run which suggested fate had decided a 108-year wait for the trophy was purgatory enough. It has since morphed into a disappointing run with only two wins in 14 outings, third place has slipped from their grasp and they are stumbling towards the sanctuary of a close season, hoping to fend off challengers for fourth place and a guaranteed shot at qualifying for the Europa League. Irritated by the downturn, some fans are calling for Hughes' first season in charge to be his last.

"Every time Hibs come up against a game they need to win to be successful or take them where they want to go, we seem to fail but that's just for now. And it takes me back to the start of the season. I knew the work that was in front of us and if you had said to me then 'there you go, there's fourth spot and with a few games to go you'll be fighting for Europe, there will be the emergence of (David] Wotherspoon and (Paul] Hanlon and the goals of Stokesy (Anthony Stokes] to be pleased about', then I would have taken that for the first year and then work to consolidate that and build on it and improve next season."

The majority of fans, if they are honest, will admit they would also have settled for such a scenario back then but the problem is Hughes and his charges made a rod for their own back. They are the ones who raised expectations and even if the level of performance in those early months was not always consistent, the points were coming in the league and progress was good in the cup. "We got a good reaction from the players when we came in and the response has been great from most of them but when opportunities arise to go and be successful you have to take it. That's why the Scottish Cup was so disappointing, really disappointing. We had an opportunity and didn't take it.

"You can put your finger on wee bits and pieces, the change in the weather that kind of thing, but if you want to be successful you have to have it in your locker to win ugly as well, and there's still a lot of work in front of us but it's a work in progress."

Previously he had stated it may take two to three transfer windows to get where he wants to go but, having seen how mentalities need to be moulded, he now says a four-year time frame may be more realistic.

Players will, Hughes states, have to come and go but the job is also working with those already at his disposal in the hope the penny will drop. The old Leith motto is Persevere but he says society is breeding weaker personalities. The toughness which once came with a life down the pits, working in steelyards or surviving down the dockyards has been diluted by a changing culture and while he welcomes some of those alterations, including the luxury of a training centre compared to life trailing round Edinburgh in a transit van with goals strapped on top looking for a venue, he says it has become even more vital to imbue that steeliness in players themselves as they come through the academies. Or, be fortunate enough to unearth lads with an almost genetic desire to succeed and to give everything they can to the cause.

"When I was chatting with Ian Murray and Colin Nish this morning, I wasn't just asking them how to make the club great, we talked about the way we train, the intensity of training, but then Derek (Riordan] bundled in.

"I had seen his wee ears pricking up, so I said 'what do you want to do this morning Derek?' Straight away he said 'games and shooting!' and you start laughing but then you realise he's not that much different from any other footballer because when we draw up coaching sessions we ask what would you rather be doing today and it's games, crossing and finishing. That's probably why he is technically very good. But is it enough?

"Well, put it this way, could I ask Derek Riordan to go and play full-back or centre-half if we were stuck? No. Could you get Ian Murray to go and play centre forward if needs be? Yeah, you could, because he has a desire and wherever he plays he will give it everything he's got.

"Derek is possibly one of the cleverest players we have at the club in many ways. He is awfully clever when it comes to finding space he can drop into where he knows he will not have to track a runner and he can do that within minutes. But he is also technically very clever and Derek is at his best when he is enjoying his work. At the moment, because we have had a few bad results, it's maybe not as much fun. We are demanding that we need to get back to where we were but as a manager you have to back off that a bit because you may knock one or two of them."

It's his greatest struggle, harnessing those emotions. Like fans, he wants players who can take the knocks and accept the harsh reality of most people's lives, the fact that hard graft isn't always fun but has to be done if the rewards are to follow.

"I believe you can instil that winning mentality in some players, giving some a kick up the backside and others a cuddle, but nine times out of ten, the players you always need to cuddle are the ones who, in the big games when the pressure is on, will let you down," admits Hughes. "It's the ones who go out there and can do it for themselves and grasp the concept of what's required, they are the ones who are usually winners."

He says he knows how footballers think and enforcing new thinking and practices will simply spark revolt. Instead, they have to be drip-fed, which is why these things take time. But patience is not in limitless supply, in fans or in Hughes.

"I will have to bring players with that mentality to the club but I'm hoping there are already some in that dressing room. It might come to the stage that one or two noses have to be put out of joint or one or two big names have to be moved on because nobody is bigger than the club. They have to buy into the hard work."

These ideas may not be 100 per cent revolutionary but Hughes is hoping simple things can combine to provoke a revolution, at his club at least. Things such as extending the time players spend at the training centre, whether that's in the gym or taking part in inter-club head tennis or badminton tournaments. It's a case of sculpting body and mind. Everything from dietary advice to dehydration and alcohol testing, but most of all it will come down to attitude.

Dundee United are the side finishing the season the way Hibs started. They are the team guaranteed at least third and they are the ones in the Scottish Cup final. But it took Craig Levein and Peter Houston almost four years to get them to this stage. Years spent juggling the pack to get the right balance in the side, wheeling and dealing to get the right kind of people and years building confidence and consistency. They always had a view of the bigger picture, and the demand each season was ongoing improvement.

"That's why, if people are saying they want me out or there is stuff being written in papers, I don't really want a right of reply," he says. It is obvious it irritates him, though. He wants people to view the season as a whole and to keep things in perspective but he also knows football isn't always that accommodating. "I'm thick-skinned and I have to be bigger and better than that. I can do that because I have great belief in where I want to go and how to get there. You have to keep improving, that's how you judge it, and we have done that. We have improved on last season."

It's enough for him, for now. But he still wants more and he's willing to work for it. He doesn't have all the answers but he's certainly asking questions, of himself and his players.