John Hughes puts form dip in perspective

They are down to fourth in the SPL now, just half a dozen points ahead of city rivals Hearts, and with diminishing hopes of challenging even an out-of-sorts Celtic. In such circumstances, it is hardly surprising that sentences including the words "bubble" and "burst" have been uttered by some of their detractors.

Yet, while the atmosphere at the club may not be nearly as ebullient right now as it was when the team were putting together a 12-game unbeaten run, John Hughes insisted yesterday they are keeping those recent results in perspective. The manager has seen his team lose to Rangers and Dundee United and draw with Hearts since Christmas, but remains convinced their development is ahead of schedule.

"They've been absolutely fantastic," Hughes said when asked about his squad. "In the last three games the champions have beaten us, we drew in the derby, and last week we got beaten at Tannadice and it wasn't a great game.

"We're punching above our weight. We're reassessing and regrouping. We're battering into the players a winning culture, a working culture."

Since taking over at Easter Road last summer, Hughes has tried to balance optimism and realism, maintaining even when his team were flying high that they still had a long way to go.

To outsiders this may have seemed at the time like a defensive measure, designed to ensure the players did not get carried away by the moderate success they were enjoying, but now they have experienced a degree of adversity it has the ring of common sense to it.

Certainly, the manager feels that achieving a consistent improvement in a team takes far longer than the seven months or so he has been in place, and referred to a couple of recent conversations with other managers to back up that assessment. "I was talking to (Scotland manager] Craig Levein recently," he said. "He was four years at Dundee United, and felt he was just about there.

"And Billy Brown (who was assistant manager to Jim Jefferies] at Kilmarnock. He said it took four or five years."

With United not playing until Sunday, Hibs can go back into third place tomorrow if they win at home to Hamilton Accies. They also have a game in hand over the Dundee club in any case, and the position which Hughes believes "should be our target" is therefore by no stretch of the imagination beyond them.

As Hibs lost at Hamilton just before they set off on their long unbeaten run, tomorrow's match should provide an interesting gauge of how much they have changed since then.

That defeat was Liam Miller's debut for the club when he came off the bench, and the Irishman, who was short of match practice then, has since become one of the key players in the team. Perhaps only Sol Bamba has rivalled Miller in terms of influence, and it can hardly be a coincidence the dip in Hibs' form has coincided with the Ivory Coast defender's departure on international duty.

"Big Sol has been a big miss for us, and long may it continue," Hughes said generously. "I wish him every success in the African Cup of Nations."

Besides relying on pivotal performers such as Miller and Bamba, Hughes hopes that over the coming months he will get more out of some of his players who have had to wait patiently for a run in the team. Abdessalam Benjelloun, Lewis Stevenson and Patrick Cregg were three he mentioned in that context, and it could be they will all be given a chance from the start tomorrow.

With a midweek match against Celtic coming up, tomorrow would certainly be a good time for Hughes' team to resume their winning ways. Merouane Zemmama looks like missing out against Hamilton because of a muscle strain, but Hughes is hoping the Moroccan could make his return at Parkhead.

"That's certainly his stage," he added. "So hopefully, fingers crossed, he'll be back on Wednesday."