STUBBS WILL NEED TO TALK A GOOD GAME TO LIFT SCARRED SQUAD
Boss must convince ‘scarred’ squad they are good enough to lift Cup, says McLeish
WHEN Alex McLeish lined up alongside fellow Aberdeen legend Willie Miller at kick-off in the 1986 Scottish Cup Final, he took one look at his deflated Hearts opponents — still struggling to recover from surrendering the league title just a week previously — and knew the outcome was a formality.
He believes the same thing could happen to Hibernian today.
McLeish has managed Rangers and Hibs but, of course, he only won the Cup with one of them. In fact, McLeish — who won the trophy five times as a Dons player and twice as Ibrox boss — did reach the Final with Hibs, but their 2001 defeat by Celtic is one of 10 such losses since they last triumphed 114 years ago.
Hibs, McLeish fears, could be mentally scarred beyond repair after their disastrous Premiership last-gasp play-off semi-final loss to Falkirk condemned them to yet another year in the lower leagues. The former Scotland boss knows what a gut-wrenching defeat can do to a team, especially one which has to lift themselves for a new challenge just days later.
Hibs’ rivals Hearts famously blew the league 30 years ago with a last-day defeat to Dundee, before wearily dragging themselves to Hampden to face Alex Ferguson’s Aberdeen. It was a game they were never destined to win thanks to an early example of Fergie’s mind games.
‘It’s looking like 1986 all over again,’ said McLeish (right). ‘Hearts lost the league title on the last day and were utterly shattered mentally when they came to play us.
‘There are similarities with Hibs. We just never let Hearts get started. It looked like they were labouring and had a hangover from that last game. It takes a lot out of you. I remember the gaffer telling us to commiserate with the Hearts players.
‘We always wanted to get to the stadium first, that was a big thing for us. So we met them in the stadium and there was a bit of talk going on about what had happened at Dundee.
‘We were saying: “Can’t believe what happened last week”, and: “How did you feel?” It was wee John Robertson and these guys. You could see the heads slumping as soon as we started talking.
‘Even during the game, I said to Sandy Clark: “That must have been a gutter last week”.’
The former Birmingham and Aston Villa manager has a great deal of sympathy for Easter Road boss Alan Stubbs, who will have to try to lift his side for today.
‘Alan Stubbs will have one of the biggest challenges of his managerial career,’ McLeish pointed out. ‘If he can pull it off, it will be a Leicester job. It would be a Claudio Ranieri situation.
‘He has to show the players evidence they have beaten Rangers in the past and show them how they did it. He’ll have his own methods and it would be good to be a fly on the wall in that dressing room to see how he goes about it. Stubbsy is big on the psychological side of things and that will be a huge factor.
‘If I was doing it, I would be showing the players the positives in the performances against Rangers. There will be players thinking: “I never knew we were so good in that game”. That’s the way I would do it but Stubbsy will have his way.’
It is a point taken on by Hibs stalwart Lewis Stevenson, who insists his side owe it to their fans to lift the Scottish Cup after enduring another season of heartbreak.
‘We feel like we need to make amends and there is no better way to do that than by lifting the Cup,’ he said.
‘We need to give the supporters more to cheer about week in, week out. We have been nearly getting there — it happens so often. As a player it is hard to take and, as a fan, it’s just as bad. I want to win it as much, if not more, than the fans do and we’ll give it our very best shot.’
McLeish — fresh from his nineweek stint in Egypt as Zamalek manager — is adamant Rangers need to be wary, too. He explained: ‘You are always anxious about finals like this because you are wondering how they will bounce back. Rangers won’t go into the Final thinking the Hibs players won’t be up for it. They will know they can hit the heights they did earlier in the season. ‘It’s also a huge game for Mark Warburton. It’s a Championship team’s chance to win the Scottish Cup. That would be unusual but when it’s Rangers’ name, you expect them to win the trophy. For Hibs, it’s 114 years without the Scottish Cup and it’s massive for them.’ Alex McLeish was speaking at a William Hill media event. William Hill is the proud sponsor of the Scottish Cup.
It would be a Claudio Ranieri situation if Stubbs can pull off a Cup win