A bad night all round for Tangerines

VICTORIOUS Neil Lennon felt it was the best Hibs performance he’d overseen since taking charge at Easter Road last summer.

Vanquished Ray McKinnon however stopped short of saying it was the worst Dundee United performance he’d been responsible for since he took control of team matters at Tannadice around the same time.

Had the Tangerines manager decided to say so, it’s hard to imagine any Arab who was in the capital would have argued with him.

Because if the Hibees beating United at home to stretch their lead at the top of the Championship could hardly rank as a shock, the nature of the 3-0 victory in Friday night’s big game surely was.

For United, you see, were never at the races.

They put in a performance that was as uncharacteristic as it was unexpected.

They had, of course, lost three times in the league before this season and the t wo defeats at lowly Dumbarton were particularly rankling for fans.

But i n those games and the September reversal at Falkirk, the victors at least had to work hard for the three points they took.

That wasn’t the case this time as the loss of cheap first half goals and a defensive vulnerability previously unseen this term saw United go down tamely.

In fact, had Hibs decided to press home their superiority instead of largely holding what they had in the second half, this defeat could have been even more damaging.

In a game they went into with so much hope, the visitors simply never gave themselves a chance.

Behind to a Jason Cummings goal after an opening six minutes that saw them barely able to get out of their own penalty box, never mind their half, McKinnon’s men never recovered.

Cummings would strike again before the half hour mark and the harsh truth was that by the interval United had to be relieved the deficit wasn’t at least a couple of goals more.