Paul Hanlon says Hibs need to learn from defeats like Celtic if they want to be playing European football going forward.
The Easter Road men suffered a 6-1 hammering at Parkhead on Saturday, making it two defeats on the spin after the midweek defeat at Dundee United. Lee Johnson's men had won their previous four Premiership meetings prior to this week. The capital stopper described the result as 'bitterly disappointing' and has warned his team-mates they need to be better prepared both individually and collectively.
The Hibees face five more fixtures between now and the World Cup shutdown starting with St Johnstone on Friday night under the lights at Easter Road as VAR makes its big debut in the Scottish game. It's then St Mirren, Aberdeen, Ross County and Kilmarnock in a crucial block of fixtures that could go a long way towards the success of the campaign.
READ MORE: Celtic 6 Hibs 1 as David Marshall has howler on return, big five games to come - 3 things we learned
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Speaking to Hibs' official website, the defender said: “It is bitterly disappointing. When you come to Celtic Park and concede early goals like we did it puts you right on the back foot and from there it was a difficult afternoon.
“The opening passages of the game weren’t too bad, but to concede so early puts you on the back foot. Especially with their style of play, they pressed us high up the pitch and we conceded sloppy goals. All in all, it was a poor performance from everyone involved.”
He continued: “We all need to look at each other individually at first and see what we can do better – it is a learning experience for us.
"We will face many more games like this in the future against this type of opposition, so if we want to improve and play in European competitions going forward then we need to learn from a defeat like this and make sure we are better prepared both individually and collectively.
“We need to refocus, try and eradicate the mistakes from our game and we will need to make sure we put in a much better performance next week against St Johnstone.”
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