Ross to meet Hibs owner Gordon for talks over squad strengthening
Jack Ross is looking forward to catching up with Hibs owner Ron Gordon as his search for new defenders and forwards continues.
Gordon watched from the Easter Road stand as Hibs defeated Arsenal 2-1 in Tuesday night’s pre-season friendly, and will today hold his first face-to-face meeting with his manager since Covid restrictions eased.
High on the agenda will be Ross’ request for reinforcements and the Easter Road boss is looking for new recruits at both ends of the pitch to create more competition and add depth to the pool of players for the new season and European campaign.
“We are a bit thin at the moment in terms of having a real depth to it which we want to have because we want to be better than we were last season,” Ross said following the friendly win over a star-studded Gunners side including Pierre-emerick Aubameyang, Willian and Alexandre Lacazette.
“We have been unfortunate and having a few niggles pre-season and a few illness issues which have left us a little bit short, but going into this season I think we would like to strengthen defensively and at the top end of the pitch because we have good players in either area but we want to have more of them to enable you to cope with the demands of the Premiership.”
Speaking to Sky Sports the manager added: “He [Ron Gordon] has always been very supportive even when he has not been in the country. I will catch up with him on Thursday and it will be nice to see him in person because I haven't for a while.
"It was nice for him to be here to see the team firsthand again and as I have mentioned he has always been very supportive in terms of strengthening it. He wants to make us better as well so we're just making sure we get the right ones.”
Daniel Mackay and Jake Doyle-hayes have already been recruited to Easter Road while Jamie Murphy’s loan deal from Rangers has become a permanent transfer.
Hibs have also been linked with a move for Hamilton Accies’ Hakeem Odoffin and St Johnstone's Jamie Mccart.
Meanwhile, Mikel Arteta has claimed Hibs’ winning goal against his Arsenal side should not have counted.
The Spaniard insisted that Mackay was offside when he nodded home the Easter Road side's second goal from close range after Paul Hanlon headed a Kyle Magennis corner back across goal.
The goal, Mackay's second of pre-season after also finding the net against Dunfermline, sealed the impressive victory over the Engish Premier League side, who were playing their first warm-up match following the summer break.
"I'm always disappointed when we lose a football match but it is the first game, we played with many kids and we only had four training sessions,” Arteta told the Arsenal website.
"We've trained really hard and you could see that the players were a little bit leggy. I think we conceded the first goal, an accident, and the second goal was clearly offside. We created many, many chances but we didn't score. That's what pre-season is for, to take the things that we haven't done well into a training session and then improve."