HIBERNIAN right back Lewis Miller is confident the Easter Road club can put their back-to-back defeats to Rangers and Celtic behind them and secure a European qualification when club football resumes after the international break.
Hibs dropped to fifth place in the cinch Premiership table on Saturday when they were beaten 3-1 by the Scottish champions at Parkhead and Aberdeen defeated Hearts 3-0 up at Pittodrie.
But Australian defender Miller felt the capital club, who took the lead through a first-half Josh Campbell penalty after Elie Youan had been been sent off, can be proud of how they performed in the East End of Glasgow.
He is certain that Lee Johnson’s men can return to winning ways when they host Motherwell in Leith on Saturday week and move back up the league if they perform with the same intensity as they did against Celtic.
“I had mixed emotions on Saturday,” he said. “I thought we played quite well and it was unfortunate we didn’t get the result. We held off Celtic for a long time, even with a player less. It was a good performance. We will take some pointers and move on to the next game.
“The scoreline is kind of rough because I thought we were better than that. When we went down to 10 men all we wanted to do was try to hold them off. They were knocking on the door for as long as they could and eventually they got there with the set piece.
“That said, if you watch the game, I think we played very well. It is a positive sign that we are going in the right direction. Hopefully we can go on to the next game, get three points and work our way to Europe.
“We expect to win every game. On our day, in my opinion we can beat any team. Obviously Celtic and Rangers are going to be a bit tougher. But at the end of the day you have to forget about all these big names. Forget about Celtic, forget about Rangers, just focus on the game. It is tough because they win a lot. But they lose sometimes so we just fight.”
Miller felt that Johnson, who had used 15 men against 10 in training in the build-up to the Parkhead encounter to prepare his charges for the onslaught they would face, got his gameplan exactly right in the Celtic match.
“Tactically, he is very switched on and he knew what we were going to do,” he said. “In training we did play 15 v 10. It was to get into our heads to play more zonal and be aware of the spacing instead of staying on the man.
“It worked on Saturday. Look, it felt quite good to be fair. We were well prepared. That drill helped us out. You saw that on the pitch.
“Celtic is a big club and all we can do is fight and give it our 100 per cent all. It was unfortunate on Saturday, but there are a lot of positives we can take out of the performance.”
Johnson was furious that Youan got red carded by referee Steven McLean for a second bookable offence against Celtic – but Miller stressed the players were unaffected by the match official’s calls.
“At the end of the day, it is the ref’s decision,” he said. “He sees what he sees. We have got VAR to assist it as well so we can’t complain about it.
“Everyone gets emotional in the game, especially in a big game like that, first versus fourth. So obviously emotions were high. At the end of the day it is football. There are always going to be decisions that don’t go your way and some that do go your way. It’s football.”
