UNDER THE COSH
Hibs boss tells players to toughen up or be dropped
HIBS manager Paul Heckingbottom has warned his players they face being dropped unless they start rolling up their sleeves and winning ugly.
The Englishman was quick to acknowledge that their ‘pretty’ football got them nowhere in a 3-0 defeat at Motherwell before the international break.
So furious were some sections of the travelling support that they called for the 42-year-old’s head.
But Heckingbottom, whose side travel to Kilmarnock tomorrow having amassed just four points from as many Premiership games at the start of the new season, insists it’s up to the players to show a different side to their game.
‘I said after the Motherwell game we looked like a pretty team who got beat,’ he declared. ‘We want to be able to win games and perform consistently.
‘Towards the back end of last season, we won a couple of games ugly.
‘You could still say we deserved to win them, but we still had to dig in — but we’ve not won one like that yet.
‘You can’t blame the guys in defence as it all starts from the front.
‘We need more from the front players, the pressure they put on the ball to try and win it back, more cover in midfield.
‘I speak to the players regularly, that if you make three mistakes in a row you’re going to concede a goal.
‘We need to get back to: “I’ve made a mistake but my mate behind covers for me. I make a mistake, my mate behind can’t cover it but the goalkeeper saves it”.
‘That’s what we need and we’ve not done that often enough.
‘If you’re not comfortable doing that, you’re going to limit your game time.
‘We’ll keep working on the training pitch but the teams we pick and the players being dropped will reflect that as well.’
Asked about the fact seven of his ten new summer arrivals had no previous experience of the Scottish game, he conceded: ‘You’re just crossing the border but it’s a totally different type of football, just like if you were going across to the continent. There are those adaptations but that’s all they are, it’s still the same game.’