It's now hard to believe that, about ten minutes into the match at Easter Road, I genuinely thought "Wow, Hibs look good on the ball and could really hurt Celtic". An hour and a half later, Celtic were five goals up. There's being beaten, and then there's being humiliated. In my book, suffering your heaviest home defeat in 25 years counts as a humiliation. Celtic were clinical and efficient, but the way the home team collapsed after conceding two first half goals was staggering. I'd love to say the Bhoys were made to work hard, but the goals seemed to come simply from defensive errors, poor concentration or, dare I say it, lack of effort.
Hibernian fans could be forgiven for assuming that Colin Calderwood was still in the dugout. Calderwood's year in charge, which ended in November, was, to put it bluntly, a catastrophe that did the club a lot of damage. He won just twelve of forty-nine games and lost a Scottish Cup tie at second division Ayr United just two months into his reign. For all the slagging of The Tache (the nickname of Hibs managing director Rod Petrie, who has whiskers that a World War II fighter pilot would be proud of) and his spell in control of Hibernian, Calderwood's record as manager of Nottingham Forest and Northampton Town justified backing him beyond the end of last year, even as the team stumbled to a tenth place finish.
That said, when Calderwood attempted to leave the club to become Chris Hughton's assistant at Birmingham, Petrie should have cut his losses - actually, since Birmingham offered £300,000 in compo, he wouldn't have had any losses to cut. But Hibernian opted to keep a manager that obviously wasn't committed to the club...and allowed him to sign ten players in the summer transfer window. The result? Three wins in fourteen league games, and Calderwood was sacked in November. Instead of getting a fee for him, Petrie had to pay him off. What is Calderwood doing now? Why, he's assistant manager at Birmingham City.
The appointment of Pat Fenlon as manager was meant to herald a new dawn. The reigns of Calderwood, his predecessor John Hughes, and possibly even Mixu Paatelainen before them, had been characterized by a playing squad that looked good on paper but, on and off the pitch, reeked of disorganization, indiscipline and lack of effort. Calderwood had pretty much revamped the entire squad, but the same problems remained.
The January transfer window was so busy that rumour has it that an extra revolving door is being installed at Easter Road. Not happy with what he inherited, Fenlon has gone for the short-term fix of loan signings - no fewer than six, in fact. I must admit, each name impressed me a little bit - either guys with Championship experience (James McPake, Tom Soares, Roy O'Donovan), young players trying to break into their English Premier League team (George Francomb, Matt Doherty) or, in the case of Honduran Jorge Claros, the fact that Hibs allegedly beat Rangers to his signature. Five dead-wood players were punted, four of which were Calderwood signings.
And he seemed to have done the sensible thing by shoring up the defence first with Francomb, McPake, Doherty and permanent signing Pa Saikou Kujabi. The new look back-line earned Fenlon his first SPL clean sheet with a goalless draw against Aberdeen. Sadly, that was sandwiched by the humping from Celtic and a 4-0 drubbing at Ibrox. McPake was sent off against Rangers, and was an absolute disaster against Celtic. Kujabi is apparently known as the Gambian Roberto Carlos, though the only obvious similarity is a lack of defensive ability. Claros looked quite tidy on the ball against Celtic, but was overrun in the centre of the pitch.
What chance does Fenlon have to break this terrible cycle of underachievement and defeat (and, given the antics of Leigh Griffiths, indiscipline too)? One win and five points from your first ten league games is not overly encouraging for the future. The hope for Hibernian fans is that he can gel this team quickly. The short-term priority is just to get to the end of the season as an SPL club - for all their problems, the team is surely good enough to earn more points than Dunfermline, especially when Garry O'Connor, the Scotland forward, is fully fit again. The most impressive signing of the lot, Stoke's midfielder Tom Soares, should team up with Claros to give him an enviable midfield pairing. On-loan Wolves centre-back Doherty has played some EPL games earlier this season.
But we've said this before when the likes of Liam Miller and Derek Riordan were strutting around the pitch. Football, after all, is not played on paper. And we've claimed that 'Hibernian are too good to go down' so many times now that, sooner or later, we might well be proved wrong.
THE TEAM TO KEEP HIBERNIAN UP
L.
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