Ross tips Nisbet to hit goal trail again after ending drought
JACK ROSS has backed Kevin Nisbet to go on a scoring spree for Hibernian after finally ending his frustrating goal drought.
The 24-year-old’s equaliser in Saturday’s 2-1 victory away to St Johnstone was just his fifth of the season and his first in eight games.
For a normally prolific striker who racked up 18 goals last term – and 57 in the previous two campaigns with Dunfermline and Raith Rovers – it was undoubtedly a concern.
But, with the Scotland internationalist also having two strikes controversially chalked off against Saints, Ross is convinced Nisbet can use his weekend performance to stimulate a better strike-rate in the coming weeks.
He said: “I’m really, really pleased for him,
“He knows how much faith I’ve got in him and we had a good conversation on Friday about aspects of his game and the bits he needs to continue to do well to give him opportunities to score.
“And I think he looked ‘at it’ on Saturday.
“The ‘goal’ in the first-half was contentious but the finish was excellent. His all-round play was excellent, and his finish in the second half was what he does.
“He’s a good player and that will help him enormously.
“He’s still a young man as well and he was frustrated by it and he was feeling it.
“So, I would back him now to go on and score regularly. I think it will happen for him again.
“He did it last season and hopefully that will be the catalyst for it.”
Ross is also keeping his fingers crossed the victory at McDiarmid Park, which saw Hibs roar back from a goal down with two goals in the final seven minutes, will spark a change of fortune in the league.
The Easter Road men had posted five straight defeats before lifting themselves back into the top-six with Saturday’s three points.
They now face a rematch of their recent Premier Sports Cup semi-final clash with Rangers tomorrow night.
And Ross is hopeful his side will now have the confidence to try to repeat that 3-1 victory at Hampden.
He added: “Irrespective of who we play in midweek, we just wanted to get back to winning ways.
“We were frustrated last Wednesday not to do it [against Ross County]; we felt as if we should have done.
“So, it was nice to do it on Saturday away from home.
“We’ll go into a game on Wednesday – on the back of the semi-final performance – that we absolutely believe we can win again.
“We’ve got to reproduce that but Saturday was a big boost for the players in that respect.
“We want it to be the catalyst for putting a good run together in terms of league games between now and the winter break.”