Jakub Divis gets his chance while Graham Stack is given hope at Hibs

HIBERNIAN are close to finalising their plans for dealing with those players who are out of contract, and plan to publish the details shortly, manager Colin Calderwood said yesterday.

Those whose futures remain to be resolved include goalkeepers Graham Stack and Jakub Divis, striker Ricardo Vaz Te and full-back Richie Towell.

The immediate future of Towell, who has been on loan from Celtic since the start of the year and can also play in midfield, is a return to Parkhead, after which Hibs will have to wait to learn whether Neil Lennon wants the young Irishman to be part of his squad next season or is willing to allow him to return to Easter Road either on another loan deal or on a more permanent basis. The other three, by contrast, look set to stay with the Edinburgh club, at least on short-term deals.

"I think there will probably be some sort of announcement either tomorrow or at the beginning of next week," Calderwood said yesterday when asked how close Hibs were to completing deliberations on which players to keep. The timing of that announcement could spell good news for Divis in particular.

The 24-year-old Czech joined on a year-long loan deal from Tatran Presov in January, and has a clause in his contract allowing the loan to be ended midway through. He will be given his competitive debut tomorrow in the home game against St Johnstone and, although his manager said that and the following match would allow the club a more accurate assessment of his abilities, it may already have been decided that he deserves longer to establish himself in the first-team squad.

"We're going to put Jakub in on Saturday and it'll be a true test," Calderwood said. "We can have a good look at him in the next couple of games. He's only played against Bohemians in a friendly so far, but it has taken this time for him to settle in.

"Mark Brown has been excellent since he returned after Graham Stack's injury, so that stopped me doing anything before now. In essence, it's unfair on Mark to leave him out, but I have to make a judgement and have it in my head through the summer, in terms of where Jakub is.

"We have an option to keep him on in the summer until January, or we can let him go. I need to make a decision on him by the end of the season and the next couple of games will be the only evidence I have to base that on. In training, there's moments where he shows good ability. But it's about putting that into a game. The benefit of having him here for this amount of time is that, hopefully, the communication side of things is sorted out.

"The big test for him will be Saturday. He shouldn't feel under any real pressure - if he performs at a good level, we'll have an indication of how good he is. It's not really about what he is now, it's about how good he could be, which is important."Stack, who is still recovering from a back injury, has already done enough to prove his worth to Calderwood, who is happy to have several keepers vying for the starting jersey next season.

"He's doing fine with the injury - he's doing aerobic work and we've had very good feedback from the surgeon this week," the manager said of Stack. "Graham is progressing and he was never going to be back before the end of the season. In terms of the recovery, it's looking good.

"Obviously we want to try and make sure the injury doesn't come back, but we will be speaking to him. I think he did well when he was in the team. He was effective in games for us. Communication is one of his main strengths.

"I don't necessarily want to have a set No 1 next season. I'd rather have a few people who I'm comfortable with putting in to do a job."

Like Divis, Vaz Te has had little chance to make an impression, but has done well in spells. "We have to give him game time as well," Calderwood added.

Meanwhile, although Towell has expressed his hopes of staying with Hibs, the manager accepted that he would go back to Celtic in the short term at least.

"I can't see him starting pre-season with us as he's a Celtic player, but I'll have discussions with them in the summer," he added.

The onus on Divis, Vaz Te and indeed everyone else selected for tomorrow's home game is to ensure Hibs play more dynamically than they have done in their last two matches, in which they have taken only one point from the SPL's bottom clubs, Hamilton Accies and St Mirren. "We have to get a bit more excitement for the fans and look as if we have more of a threat than we did against St Mirren," Calderwood added, referring to Sunday's 1-1 draw.

"It would be better to send them away with a glimmer of hope instead of a disappointing end to the season. The foundation of the team is there. If we don't show good application until the end of the season, I'd be quizzical during the summer.

"There were moments when we played some good football, but it was spasmodic. What they did do last week was dig in and earn a point from a game where a lot of people played below their normal standard. There shouldn't be a mundane game left for us this season."