Motherwell 2 - 0 Hibernian: Relegation looms ever larger for feeble Hibs

THE good news for Hibernian is that, despite playing so badly for so long, they are still not bottom of the SPL. The bad news is that they show no sign of knowing how to halt their slow slide into the abyss.

That's five games without a goal now. Eight league matches since they last won. Six in the SPL since they kept a clean sheet. They can't score at one end. They can't keep their opponents out at the other. Oh, and in case you were wondering, they're not very competitive in midfield either.

Colin Calderwood inherited this feckless bunch, and so can hardly be called the cause of the club's problems. However, after four months in charge, he has come up with no workable solutions, and aspects of his team selection have made matters worse.

If you want to give three goalkeepers a little run each in the team, that's fine - when the end of the season is approaching and there is little or nothing to play for. But when you're in this kind of trouble, especially when the back four are so lacking in confidence, you should choose your best goalkeeper and stick with him, which in this case means Mark Brown.

Instead, Graeme Smith, a bundle of nerves in the midweek cup defeat by Ayr United, kept his place and did nothing to justify his manager's confidence, if that is the right word. Soon it will be Graham Stack's turn in a policy which verges on the reckless.

• SPL in pictures

Calderwood said last week that he knows he has time to turn the situation around and rebuild a squad which contains 15 players who will be out of contract in the summer. Yet while engaging in that reconstruction, he has to ensure that Hibs keep their heads above water.

They should have the players to do that, but right now it is Hamilton's inability to win, not their own efforts, that looks like saving them. Even then, the gap between the two bottom clubs is three points, and Accies have a game in hand. The teams still have to meet another three times.

Matt Thornhill, whose signing from Nottingham Forest should be completed shortly, may give Hibs more bite in midfield, but it would be wrong to expect too much of one relatively inexperienced player. Calderwood said after this defeat that he is "quite close" to making another signing, and it is one that could make or break him as Hibs manager. Talent is not enough: he has that in his squad already and it is getting him nowhere. What is required is a player with a strong personality who will shake his team-mates out of their self-pity and cajole them into fighting for their survival.

That ability to fight, or possibly the willingness to do so, has declined in recent weeks.At the end of December, Hibs claimed a draw from 2-0 down, albeit against a Dundee United side playing its first match in more than five weeks. On Saturday, Motherwell shut them down all too easily to record their first league win under Stuart McCall.

Merouane Zemmama had been the catalyst for the recovery against United, coming on at half-time for his first appearance after months out because of injury, and he was gifted the chance to do the same thing shortly before half-time in this game when Steven Saunders handled the ball in the box. Had the Moroccan scored, Hibs' hearts would have been lifted, and Motherwell would have been forced into a more open second half. Instead, he fired the ball a yard or so over the crossbar. It was one of the worst penalties in the history of the SPL, and effectively killed off Hibs' hopes.

Calderwood had a point when he complained afterwards that advantage could have been played as the ball was breaking to John Rankin, but who was to say that the midfielder would have scored? No-one who saw him fluff his chance against Ayr when through on the keeper would have banked on him finding the net. Similarly, the manager plausibly suggested that Saunders might have seen red for denying a goal-scoring opportunity. Would a ten-man Motherwell have been unable to keep Hibs out? In the event, they won with something to spare, and their superior organisation would surely have seen them through even if they had lost a man.

Calderwood was further mystified after the break when his assistant, Derek Adams, was sent to the stand for "foul and abusive language", but there was nothing at all baffling about the pattern of play in that second half. Motherwell restricted Hibs to no more than the odd sight of goal, with a volley from Zemmama and a free-kick from Derek Riordan reaching but not troubling Darren Randolph.

Riordan, who had started on the bench because of a hip problem, did next to nothing after replacing Rankin quarter of an hour into that second period. Colin Nish, a substitute at the interval for Darryl Duffy, did even less. And by the time another striker, Kurtis Byrne, came on for Zemmama, Hibs' hopes of getting anything from the game were long gone.

In fact, if the penalty is set aside, those hopes were effectively extinguished midway through the first half. Jamie Murphy's opening goal, a header from a Steven Hammell free-kick, had a suspicion of offside about it, but the visitors' defence was also negligent. Similarly, at the second goal, which came from a Hammell corner, Hibs failed to attack the ball, allowing Saunders to head in at the near post. Such inadequacies will surely be even more severely punished if repeated on Wednesday against Rangers.With the champions desperate to make up the ground they lost at the weekend, it is hard to see Hibs approaching that game in anything other than a state of severe trepidation.

MAN OF THE MATCH

Steven Hammill (Motherwell)

Solid teamwork and rigorous organisation were the principal reasons for the home team's win, but the full-back's precise delivery for both goals provided them with a cutting edge.

Referee: A Muir

Attendance: 4,202