Hibs 'lost in the dark' as another manager search begins

Will Hibs look long and hard at those responsible for picking recent managers?

There were many moments that made you wince in Nick Montgomery's months as manager of Hibs, not least his pre-match declaration on Sunday that his team were currently sitting third in the table for expected goals.

A 4-0 home defeat by Aberdeen and from xG to P45. Following on from Jack Ross, Shaun Maloney and Lee Johnson, Montgomery is the fourth Hibs manager to lose his job in the past two and a half years.

He lasted just short of 250 days. Fewer days than Johnson but more than Maloney, who was in post about 15 minutes, or thereabouts.

Montgomery, Johnson and Maloney had a league points-per-game return of 1.3, 1.3 and 1.26, which shows how Hibs have been running to stand still.

Ross, by comparison, was a relative Easter Road institution. He had a return of 1.7 and was in the job for just over 750 days. That can be classified as an era in Hibs' terms of late.

David Gray is now in his fourth spell as interim manager - 2021, 2022, 2023 and 2024. Before him, Eddie May did two interim spells in 2019, between the reigns of Neil Lennon and Paul Heckingbottom and then between Heckingbottom and Ross. Six separate interim management spells since January 2019.

A word on Montgomery. The biggest job he had to do was fix Hibs' defence and he could not do it. He did not sign a significant defender and did not improve the ones he had.

He never came up with a way to camouflage the frailties at the core of this team and could not bring a halt to a ruinous habit of conceding late goals that so often turned three points into one and one point into zero.

Ten times that happened in the league. Hibs blew a 2-0 lead twice and only got a draw both times. They were 2-1 ahead in the 90th minute against St Mirren and Ross County and drew both of those, too. In seven games they conceded seven goals from the 88th minute and that weakness cost them 11 points.

Ten of the 11 were in pre-split games. Stick another 10 points on Hibs' tally now and they are comfortably top six and pushing for Europe.

Montgomery's claim about the xG table was the kind of thing beaten managers come out with, a desperate attempt to build a case when there really was not any case to build.

You hear it said that Hibs cannot keep on firing managers and it is absolutely true, they cannot. The problem is they cannot stop hiring managers that perform so poorly in the job that there is no alternative but to fire them.

That takes us to the meat of this - the Hibs hierarchy. They are the ones who make these appointments. They are the ones who got the club into a situation where they have so many players on their books they have put vast numbers out on loan.

A squad rebuild is required. An identity is needed. What are Hibs trying to be as a football team? Managers come and go and nobody really comes up with the answer to pretty fundamental questions.

Ben Kensell has now fired his fourth manager. Presumably, as chief executive, he will have a big say in the appointment of the next one in the door.

But if the club really want to conduct a serious review of what they are doing - and they badly need it - then everybody must come under the microscope - Kensell and his director of football, Brian McDermott, included.

Hibs now operate in tandem with Bill Foley's Black Knight consortium, a group who may have felt unwilling to give Montgomery some of the money they are investing.

Given the instability at the club, Foley and chums might well be asking some hard-hitting questions of the executive team who operated above Montgomery.

A fine stadium, a lovely training ground and plush hospitality areas at Easter Road are critically important to them, but they cannot get the most important bit right. You do not get points for having a nice menu in your restaurant.

Change the manager again, sure. Roll the dice again. Hope for better this time.

It is a sticking-plaster solution to a problem that requires major surgery. Scouting, recruitment, leadership, culture, strength.

Montgomery has gone because there was no rational reason to keep him. But if the answer is just another manager coming in and nothing else changing how long will it before we are back here again, talking about a guy heading out the door and working out new stats that illustrate a club that is lost in the dark?

Logan Roy from Succession once said he was Hibs since childhood. He also said his children, when it came to business, were "not serious people".

As they wait for the next manager to be appointed, the Hibs fans might be excused for saying the same thing about their team and the management at all levels who are responsible for this latest malaise.