Don’t judge Matulevicius by his record on Wikipedia says Lennon

● Hibs manager believes striker will add greatly to attack even if he is not prolific

ROSS COUNTY

V HIBERNIAN

Hibernian head coach Neil Lennon has urged supporters nottojudgedeivydasmatulevicius by his record on Wikipedia, and believes the British football public “live in a bubble” with their dismissive attitude towards other leagues.

The Lithuania international striker became Lennon’s sixth summer recruit on Wednesday after signing a two-year contract in a move from Belgian side Royal Mouscron.

A cursory glance at the 28-year-old’s online biography suggests Matulevicius, who netted four times for Mouscron, will not be the outright goalscorer that Lennon, and particularly the fans, are looking for to fill the void left by Jason Cummings, who joined Nottingham Forest last month.

However, former Celtic manager Lennon insists the 6ft 3in player will offer a physical presence to his attack in the same way that former Norwich City player Grant Holt did last term.

Lennon, whose side take on Ross County this evening in their second Betfred Cup clash, said: “I’m really pleased with David. We’ve basically been looking at him since we came in. When we knew he was going to become available then we pushed the button.

“He’s a target man and he’s mobile. I wouldn’t say he’s prolific but if he was then he certainly wouldn’t be coming to play in Scotland with the attributes that he has.

“Anyone can go by Wikipedia pages and a lot of fans tend to do that, then make a decision on someone based on that. Wikipedia can hide a multitude of sins.

“I hope people judge him on his all-round game because what we’ve seen, we’ve liked.

“For the wages we pay, we also have to take that into consideration as well. He’s got good experience and he’s played at a very high level. “I played with some really good ‘big’ strikers – like [Emile] Heskey, [Chris] Sutton, [John] Hartson – and they can make the difference at the top end of the pitch at times if you can’t get out or you’re being outplayed by teams.

“Grant Holt did a great job for me last year with his experience, know-how and physicality and we hope David will add the same sort of qualities.”

While some fans may be less than enamoured by the pedigree of the 33-times capped Matulevicius, Lennon insists his career will have been enriched by spells of playing in his homeland, Romania, Poland and Kazakhstan. The manager added: “We live in a bubble.

0 Lithuanian striker David Matulevicius was unveiled at Hibs’ training ground yesterday.