Livid Lennon spurs McGinn to sharpen up
IF neil Lennon sounded furious in public, how do you think he reacted within the sanctity of the home dressing room at easter Road? Yes. Quite.
Let’s just say that his Hibernian players never again want to put their manager in the mood inflicted upon him by Tuesday night’s Betfred Cup loss at home to Queen of the South.
Accepting that the former Celtic boss had every right to lay into a team who had turned a 1-0 lead into a 3-1 loss, a side with a reputation for passing that looked entirely undeserved on the night, Scotland midfielder John McGinn admitted: ‘He was angry and rightly so. The players were angry, too.
‘we were a shadow of the team who had performed well in pre-season and in our first league game against Falkirk.
‘He was entitled to be angry — and we’re looking towards Saturday now to try to make him happy again.
‘no, we don’t want to see that side of him very often. not at all. If he’s angry, it’s us not doing our job. we want to make sure he’s in the right frame of mind because we’re performing well and getting results.
‘It’s good to get a kick up the backside. It’s what people need. we can only use that to make sure it doesn’t happen again.
‘we’re working hard towards Dunfermline on Saturday — and, hopefully, at the end of that game the manager is talking about us in a positive sense.’
McGinn, whose performance was as off-key as any in green and white on Tuesday night, was at Riccarton yesterday to help welcome the latest intake of SFA Performance School pupils to the new facility at Oriam, Scotland’s new Sports Performance Centre.
Addressing specific criticism from Lennon that, against Queen of the South, he saw no evidence of the passing pedigree of which this Hibs side are so proud, the midfielder conceded: ‘That’s fair. After last night, anyone could see it wasn’t good enough.
‘So it’s up to us to prove the manager wrong and show we are a passing team. we know from the squad and from last season that we’ve got it in our locker.’
If Hibs hope to carry some of the best elements of last year’s Scottish Cup-winning campaign through into the new season, their familiar inability to kill off opponents was back with a vengeance in midweek. Already identified as an area in need of strengthening by Lennon, all have been made aware of their responsibilities to do more.
‘To win a league or get promoted, you need to score a lot of goals,’ said McGinn. ‘Last season we didn’t do enough of that.
‘This season we have scored a lot of goals through pre-season. But, against Queens, it just wasn’t meant to be. In the final third we didn’t have that bit of quality that was needed. It’s something we will continue to work on and, hopefully, we can turn it around.
‘The new management team have tried to instil in us that we need to be more ruthless. we need to be a lot more ruthless in the final third and our own box if we want to be successful. The other night wasn’t a good example of that.
‘You’ve got crossing and finishing drills, one-to-one finishing exercises we have been doing. Then it’s about putting it into practice in games. And during pre-season I think it was evident.
‘we scored six against edinburgh City and four against Shrewsbury, which was no mean feat. So it was all going nicely. The other night was hopefully a minor blip and we can get back to creating the same chances — but, hopefully, taking them.’
The arrival of Grant Holt to play a target-man role has given Hibs more options, the well-travelled 35-year-old bringing as much nous as strength — if not quite the same degree of mobility — to a front line overly reliant on Jason Cummings last season.
Yet the fact remains that Martin Boyle and Alex Harris were the best subs Lennon had to call upon in a desperate bid to salvage Tuesday’s game. no disrespect to either player, but neither is Anthony Stokes or Liam Henderson; reinforcements are still needed.
Of immediate concern to the players is merely burying the memory of a Betfred Cup loss that, however pragmatic some may feel about the impact of reaching two cup finals on last season’s promotion push, will sting for a while.
‘I don’t think last season (reaching two finals) had a big effect on us not winning promotion,’ insisted McGinn. ‘It was our performances in important games that cost us doing anything in the league.
‘we were really keen to get back to Hampden. But we failed last night. we have to turn that around in our league performances.’