Johnson blasts ‘timid’ display from visitors
HIBS boss Lee Johnson last night branded his team as ‘timid’ in the wake of a 6-1 thrashing at
Celtic Park.
The Easter Road manager claimed his side was armed with a game plan designed to claim the club’s first win at the stadium since 2010.
Despite the defeat, Hibs remain the Premiership’s third-placed side but the margin of the scoreline means any Hearts win over Aberdeen today will see them leap-frogged by their Edinburgh rivals on goal difference.
Johnson said: ‘I’m hugely disappointed. Clearly we don’t want to come here and be as timid as we were in the first half. It was really disappointing.
‘As a collective, we wanted to be the first team to make some recent history. The first three or four minutes, we had chances to enter the final third and be brave.
‘We didn’t get at people at the edge of the box and that timid play ended up like a domino effect through the team. The first two goals we don’t get up to the ball. What is the fear factor of going to press?
‘These are defenders who have a lot of experience in the league and as a team we can apply pressure. There’s a fear factor there but that’s what we have to change. It’s the hardest thing to change but it must be on a psychological level.
‘That’s difficult for me to take and eats me up inside because second half we’ve had a good goal. We’ve still been outclassed but we tried to get to the ball, apply pressure, scored a good goal.
‘But the standard of goals we’re conceding — we’d do well to put clips together from a Sunday park league.
‘It must be a psychological factor because I see these boys sitting third or fourth or wherever we are. I see them in training, work on drills and they often execute things.
‘It felt (like) we were a boxer that didn’t want to throw a punch because we were worried about the counter punch.’
Three goals down at the break, Johnson decided to make no fewer than four half-time substitutions, withdrawing full-backs Chris Cadden and Lewis Stevenson along with forwards Harry McKirdy and Mykola Kukharevych.
Johnson added: ‘It’s on me but you put a team out and you want them to produce their best when it matters most.
‘When they don’t, you take them off or move them on otherwise you go. That’s the nature of the beast.
‘I want to go to sleep at night knowing our team and club is going to play in a way that has an identity that’s really matched with the fans and what they want — and in the first half we were a million miles off. If I could have made seven changes, I would have.’