Heckingbottom set to ring the changes at Hibs
PAUL HECKINGBOTTOM will consider making major changes after Hibernian’s slow start to the season hit a new low.
Hibs dropped to 11th in the Ladbrokes Premiership on Sunday after letting slip a lead in the final 20 minutes of their Edinburgh derby with Hearts at Easter Road.
Heckingbottom made only one change following a second consecutive league defeat, dropping Ofir Marciano and bringing in on-loan Preston goalkeeper Chris Maxwell.
Five of Heckingbottom’s summer signings started on the bench and the Hibs head coach looks set to make more changes for tomorrow’s Betfred Cup quarter-final against Kilmarnock at Rugby Park.
“You’ve got to look at that, without a doubt,” he said.
“For 70-75 minutes I know I’m going to watch the game back and be really pleased and when I get to that bit there’s going to be the same frustrations.
“You can understand the fans’ frustrations, but we go through that as well and it’s our job to make the changes. Whether they are short term in terms of shaking it up or long term, people have to step up.”
We lost Mr McParland, the club’s greatest ever manager, and then we lost The Great Lambino, who is in the top three. It must have been a nightmare being a Jags fan in the last couple of years. That’s got to change
WHEN Ian McCall left Partick Thistle back in 2011, it was one of the lowest points of his life, as he grappled with a gambling addiction that had cost him more than simply money, but the job as manager of the club he loves. Understandably, then, as he returned to resume those duties in the Firhill boardroom yesterday, there was more than a hint of a lump in his throat.
McCall, although he didn’t fully appreciate it at the time, was helped greatly in those dark days by current Thistle chairman David Beattie. And now, in Thistle’s time of dire need, he feels he can go some way to repaying that debt by returning the favour.
“At the time, and the chairman knows this, I felt I should’ve been helped a bit more,” McCall said.
“But over my recovery period I recognise what they did for me was just unbelievable. I could’ve been totally ostracised, and I wasn’t. They kept a lot of things in-house.
“I had one problem, one issue that was bad and very, very serious. It makes me proud – and there aren’t many people proud of me, maybe my son and my mum – that I’m sitting here as manager of Partick Thistle after coming through that in my life.”
The son he mentions, 16-year-old Edson, is a Thistle season ticket holder, and there is little doubt he was tugging on McCall’s heartstrings as he weighted up the decision to leave Ayr United to start anew at Firhill.
Unfortunately, that meant hurting someone else that he cares deeply for, the chairman he left behind at Somerset Park.
“Lachlan Cameron is a very important figure in my life,” he said. “Without him, I don’t know if I would’ve got back into football. He’s just the top man. I spoke to him the