They may not have the sort of flash and bang that makes for eye-catching highlight reels and ready-made headlines. But two cornerstones of the current Hibernian revival underlined their importance to Lee Johnson in Saturday’s comfortable 2-0 win over Kilmarnock.
In the ultra-versatile CJ Egan-Riley and the magnificently-monikered Jimmy Jeggo, the Easter Road side have acquired a pair of players who do more than just let their more creative team-mates get on with the fun stuff. Deployed as a holding midfield pair in a 4-2-3-1 formation against Kilmarnock, each played a crucial role in creating space and maintaining a tempo that left the visitors looking unsettled, open and extremely vulnerable to a quick break.
Hibs still have problems when it comes to making the most of counter-attack overloads; on Saturday alone, they must have butchered three or four excellent chances to bury their opponents. But they carried enough threat, even without totemic Scotland striker Kevin Nisbet, to win the game with something to spare.
With Elie Youan leading the line fairly effectively, despite his tendency to overplay and overcomplicate simple situations, Hibs quickly exposed massive gaps on both wings, with Aiden McGeady – who limped off late in the first half, unfortunately – benefiting most from raking long passes.
The fact that central defenders Will Fish and Paul Hanlon were able to stride forward and play those passes under no pressure owed a great deal to the movement of both Jeggo and Egan-Riley, who drew Kilmarnock players to them, opening up space for more direct routes forward.
Often damned with faint praise as “sitting” midfielders, the guys who form the double pivot in any formation really need to be clever with their positioning. Which means timing those runs into space.
Take a look at Photo 2, which shows Egan-Riley dragging an opponent away from the area Fish wants to attack, while Jeggo drops into cover for the centre-half. Once again, this resulted in a good forward pass and a chance to get at Killie.
The security provided by having a couple of more defensively disciplined guys in the middle of the park also provided opportunities for others to get forward, with Photo 3 showing right back Chris Cadden making a superb underlap run onto a pass from Ewan Henderson.
Put this all together and, after Fish’s opener from a corner, Hibs quickly began to overload the Killie backline – without making the most of their advantages. How they squandered the four-on-three opportunity in Photo 4 will take some explaining during any player-led video analysis session of this game.
Jeggo’s influence continued to grow in the game and while, yes, there was some element of luck about the crazy ricochet that allowed Matthew Hoppe to score a second for Hibs, the chance was created by his nominally “defensive” team-mate bursting beyond the strikers and getting into the box for Henderson’s through pass (see Photo 5).
Hibs really should have blown their opponents away after establishing that two-goal cushion and, as Photo 6 shows, they certainly had chances to punish a side chasing the game – and leaving big, inviting spaces. If only someone in green could make the right decision. Still, they got the job done.
Egan-Riley ended up playing in just the three positions, incidentally, filling in at full-back and then dropping into the right side of a back three as Johnson looked to exploit the advantage of Killie losing Kyle Vassell to a disputed VAR red card.
And the Englishman popped up to clear a goal-bound Scott Robinson effort off the goal-line in the final minute, capping a fine all-round performance on a day when Hibs climbed to fourth in the table. An ascent built on some seemingly solid new foundation stones at the heart of their squad.
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