FARID FIT TO GIVE HEARTS A FRIGHT
Hibs boss admits El Alagui’s absence has been a huge loss to his team’s ambitions
WHEN asked to identify Hibs’ Achilles heel in their doomed pursuit of Hearts this season, Alan Stubbs cites an inability to convert draws into victories. A glance at the league table shows that the Leith team have actually lost more times than they have drawn but keep the eyeballs moving to the right and the stats become even more telling.
The goals for column states that Hibs have scored just 58 times compared to the 90 netted by the runaway title winners. In that context, perhaps Farid El Alagui has been missed even more than the manager has let on.
Signed as Hibs’ main striker last summer, El Alagui has, ironically enough, had his own season wrecked by a torn Achilles tendon. Before succumbing in the first half of a damaging defeat at Alloa, the French-born striker had scored four in his first five games for the club, a continuation of his past exploits in the same division with Falkirk, for whom he scored 27 in season 2011-12.
El Alagui’s injury precipitated the signing of Dominique Malonga but, while the Congo Republic internationalist possesses plenty of skill, he too often fails to impose himself on games and has scored just twice since returning from the Africa Cup of Nations.
January acquisition Franck Dja Djedje has been a peripheral figure and, while Jason Cummings has accrued a healthy tally of 16, it was always going to be too much to ask a teenager to bear the main striking responsibility in his first full season of football.
Following substitute appearances against Raith and Queen of the South, El Alagui stepped up his comeback with a start in the 2-1 win over Dumbarton in midweek.
Although his personal performance was rusty — he missed a penalty and two decent chances from open play against the Sons — his reintroduction helped Hibs end a three-game losing streak in advance of today’s derby with Hearts at Easter Road.
‘It’s difficult to say how much we’ve missed Farid but he was obviously doing well at the time he got injured,’ reflects Stubbs. ‘He gives us something that we’ve not necessarily got with Dominique, Jason or Djedje.
‘He gives us a physical element up there, he can knock defenders about and be a nuisance. If the ball is up in the air, there’s every chance he’s going to win it.
‘It gives the back four something different to think about — a flick-on and suddenly we’re in. Dominique and Jason are not necessarily the strongest in the air — on one or two occasions we’ve been playing balls up to them, and they are not necessarily at an advantage to win them.
‘Farid gives us that different element. I saw Hearts play Cowdenbeath and they had (Callum) Paterson playing up front. He’s good in the air and was flicking balls on to the likes of Jamie Walker.
‘We’ve not necessarily had that option without Farid and it’s great we’ve got him back.’
Hibs could certainly have been doing with El Alagui in the past two Edinburgh derbies and, as the sides prepare for their final meeting of the season at Easter Road this afternoon, he’s declared himself ready to make an impact.
The 30-year-old admits he’s been a grumpy spectator during the past seven months but some pioneering work from Glasgow-based surgeon Professor Gordon Mackay has restored him to match fitness in time to help boost the team’s bid to gain promotion through the play-offs.
Mackay’s ground-breaking method of installing an internal brace to facilitate a speedier recovery first came to prominence when he helped John Jackson, pilot of Britain’s Olympic bobsleigh team, to a rapid comeback in 2013.
‘I’d read the feedback from the bobsleigh athlete and that gave me confidence,’ said El Alagui, formerly of Brentford and Dundee United. ‘The Achilles tore away and the surgeon knotted an internal brace around it.
‘That allowed me to get into my rehab sooner — instead of being out for between 10 and 12 months, it was more like four to six.
‘When I first got injured, I talked to the surgeon, the physio and the medical staff. I looked at the schedules and I was thinking about the play-offs, trying to make sure I was back for such an important part of the season.’
El Alagui managed to squeeze in
one derby before sustaining his injury and had a mixed afternoon at Tynecastle, enduring a 2-1 defeat in which his spectacular late goal was nothing more than a consolation.
The title may already belong to Hearts but the pursuit of promotion means the points remain crucial to Hibs — and he’d love to score a goal that counts for something today.
‘You can’t celebrate a goal in the same way if you don’t win,’ he admits. ‘I was unhappy with the result but we will see on Sunday — it will be a different game.
‘We need the points. We lost three games in a row recently and we can’t afford to lose any more.’
Stubbs’ assertion about too many draws actually holds water when applied exclusively to the derby fixture. Having lost that opening clash, Hibs looked set for a deserved Easter Road win in October but Alim Ozturk stepped forward to drive home a spectacular stoppagetime goal that equalised Malonga’s earlier effort.
Hibs again took the lead in the New Year fixture at Tynecastle, but Cummings’ strike was cancelled out by Walker. There has been little to separate the sides in head-to-heads, though the gulf in the official standings has been huge, with Hearts’ superior firepower reflected in a colossal points advantage of 26.
‘Fair play to them,’ reflects El Alagui. ‘Everyone was expecting them to drop points at some point, but they didn’t.
‘They kept going but their situation was different from ours.
‘Hearts knew they were going to be relegated quite early last year. They had time to prepare for this season.
‘For us, it was more last-minute, so we didn’t have the same chance.
‘If you look at the quality of their players and ours, I don’t think there’s much difference. I think we have a team as good as they have.
‘The big difference is confidence. They have done really well and credit to them for that. Every team would love their record.
‘They have managed to take points from games even when they haven’t been good and that isn’t easy.’
Hibs’ failure to beat Hearts this season, coupled with the 2-0 home defeat to Rangers which started that recent losing sequence, has led to age-old accusations that the side are mentally soft.
El Alagui has no truck with such claims. ‘You cannot compare these players with previous teams,’ he says. ‘Only three or four players are here from last year and the manager and staff are different too.
‘When you lose games, people will criticise you. What we have to do is prove we’re not soft and the best way to do that is by winning games.’