HECKINGBOTTOM FEELING THE HEAT AS TENSIONS RISE AT EASTER ROAD
Jackson positive but Hibs fans are on war PATH
ADAM JACKSON reckons his manager Paul Heckingbottom got it wrong on Saturday in stating that anxiety from the stands is getting to the Hibs players.
The 25-year-old centre-back has been through harder times than this, he says, and come out the other end stronger. Sounds just like the type of character needed to negotiate the bumpy patches a season always brings.
It’s just that Jackson subjecting the worst period of his career to date to closer examination isn’t really likely to calm the growing sense of rancour and concern at Easter Road.
Two seasons ago, he was stuck at the bottom of the English Championship with Barnsley. In early February, having rebuilt much of their team, they were just above the drop zone with 27 points from 30 games.
Then, their manager — a certain Paul Heckingbottom — walked out to go to Leeds United just four days after signing a new contract and having won just one game out of his previous 16 attempts.
He lasted less than four months at Elland Road. As for the players he left behind at Barnsley? Yep, they got relegated. Casualties everywhere.
Jackson, if nothing else, is to be commended for taking some kind of positive from a period that would have left others with little other than a head full of broken biscuits and the old thousandyard stare.
Whether it helps him in Leith remains to be seen.
‘That was probably the lowest (period) I’ve had,’ he recalled. ‘It was tough there.
‘We ended up going down, but we were a close group of lads and, after a couple of games in which we didn’t perform well, we started to perform better. We just couldn’t quite get the results at the end.’
Hmmm. Jackson is certainly going to have to call on all of his reserves for the foreseeable future. He’ll need to get some better results this time, too.
Hibs fans are on the warpath over Heckingbottom. There is no other way to put it.
The decision to start Scott Allan at right midfield, supposedly because he was carrying a knock, raised eyebrows in this draw with St Johnstone.
The playmaker did not have a good game, by any means, but his removal for Daryl Horgan on 61 minutes was the catalyst for the outpouring of frustration and venom from the stands.
It was an eye-opener for those of us who have heard about disquiet over Heckingbottom without actually witnessing the strength of emotion attached.
It must also have shocked new majority shareholder Ron Gordon, taking in his first game since completing his buyout of the Easter Road club.
Heckingbottom (right), in a postmatch address unlikely to win over his doubters, quipped that he didn’t realise there was a law against taking Allan off.
He told the punters to get used to drawn matches at home. Ordered his players to toughen up. He felt the anxiety, as he put it, spread to the team. Jackson disagreed.
Some might say that is just indicative of a boss and his players singing from a different hymn sheet.
‘I don’t think so,’ replied Jackson when asked whether tension in the stands is leaking on to the pitch.
‘We’ve all played a lot of games now. We’re all grown men, thick-skinned. It’s down to us.
‘It’s a big club with a lot of fans and they expect things, which is fair enough. We’re a big club and we want to do well. We should be up there.
‘I thought we played well and we should have won.’
And what of the rebellion that greeted Allan’s substitution, conducted at the same time as Vykintas Slivka replaced the unimpressive Christian Doidge?
‘The fans pay their money, don’t they? And it’s their opinion,’ said Jackson.
‘He is bringing on quality players. It’s not as if he’s bringing on nobody.’
What must surely concern everyone at Hibs, though, is that you could sense they were never, ever going to hang on against St Johnstone.
After a decent start, which saw Jackson head home a Stevie Mallan free-kick, the hosts began to lose the midfield battle.
Even so, when Michael O’Halloran equalised midway through the second half, they got a break a moment later when Florian Kamberi flicked in a Glenn Middleton cross to make it 2-1. They just couldn’t see it out. Heckingbottom’s men had their backs to the wall for the last ten minutes, couldn’t get out of their own half. The punters knew what was coming and the boos at the end were thunderous after Saints’ Jason Kerr had headed home a Danny Swanson cross in time added on. Not even Jackson could put a positive sheen on that. There were weak claims about Kerr’s goal being offside, but Hibs folded like a pack of cards.
‘We just couldn’t get out in the last five minutes,’ conceded the Englishman.
‘I don’t know why that was. Maybe we were a bit deep as a defensive line and we didn’t quite push as high.
‘That will probably be the gaffer’s message in training this week, that we need to push higher as a team, get the ball in their half and keep it there.
‘It was a kick in the teeth, especially with one of their goals being offside as well.
‘It took the gloss off my goal. I would rather have won 2-1 and not scored.’ season pleasing For the overall. visitors after a from Perth, this was bad start to the
They got better as the game went on, with manager Tommy Wright happy with the contribution of inexperienced figures in Wallace Duffy and Ali McCann.
‘With a wee bit of luck, we could have won,’ added goalscorer O’Halloran. ‘But coming back shows we’ve got a bit of character.
‘When I was here before, we were always an experienced squad, so it’s good to see the young players coming through as well.
‘I am enjoying it. It counts for a lot when you feel wanted somewhere. It makes you feel good about yourself when you go out to play on a Saturday afternoon.’ HIBERNIAN (4-4-2): Marciano 5; Gray 6 (Whittaker 56), Jackson 6, Hanlon 5, Stevenson 6; Allan 5 (Horgan 61), Mallan 5, Vela 5, Middleton 6; Doidge 5 (Slivka 61), Kamberi 7. Subs not used: Maxwell, Newell, Porteous, Shaw. Booked: Marciano. ST JOHNSTONE (4-3-3): Clark 6; Duffy 6, Kerr 7, Gordon 6, Tanser 6; McCann 6, Davidson 6, Craig 7 (Hendry 74); O’Halloran 8, Kane 6 (Swanson 79), Kennedy 7. Subs not used: Parish, Callachan, Vihmann, McClean, Denham. Booked: None. Man of the match: Michael O’Halloran. Referee: Don Robertson. Attendance: 15,315.