On an afternoon that ended with thousands belting out Sunshine On Leith amid scenes of high emotion, Hibs turned in a near note-perfect performance for embattled gaffer Lee Johnson.
But rookie Hearts boss Steven Naismith left Easter Road knowing that his team will need more than just a bit of fine tuning before the final curtain falls on this Scottish Premiership season. Or he definitely won’t be getting invited back for an encore.
If it hardly takes a degree in analytics to spot that Hibs had all the virtuoso performers on the pitch in Saturday’s Edinburgh derby, at least some credit must go to the conductor who pulled the whole performance together. By shutting off the most obvious threats posed by the visitors, and using his own key weapons to exploit open spaces in behind a high Hearts defensive line, Johnson gave his players the platform to put on a show.
Elie Youan’s searing pace, while in stark contrast to his sluggish decision making at crucial moments, is such an obvious danger that most teams try to shut it down from the off. But Hearts never got to grips with the livewire left winger, who was at them from the opening exchanges (See Photos 1 and 2) – and refused to let up all afternoon.
The visitors weren’t entirely without goal threat, Alan Forrest ghosting into the box to come close from a Nathaniel Atkinson cut-back (see Photo 3) early on.
While the battlefield promotion of Naismith in place of the axed Robbie Neilson should have kept Johnson and his coaching staff second guessing exactly how Hearts would play, however, it quickly became apparent that the home side had put together a plan to stifle the visitors.
Look at Photo 4 and you’ll see how Toby Sibbick’s first choice of pass, into the feet of either Andy Halliday or Cammy Devlin, is cut off by FOUR Hibs players acting as a screen – and forcing the centre-half to turn possession into a 50-50 long ball. Which was more like a 30-70 chance of retaining the ball, on the day.
That’s not to say there wasn’t space for Hearts. But the fact that Hibs pretty much ignored Barrie McKay out on the left wing (see Photo 5), effectively turning the outfield battle into a 10 v 9 contest and only moving across to deal with the threat when the ball reached him, was a vote of confidence in CJ Egan-Riley’s ability to cope one-on-one. Hearts had just a little more joy when they overloaded that wing (see Photo 6) but, even then, they lacked punch.
With a little more accuracy themselves, Hibs might have taken the lead before half-time. Look at all that space in front of Youan in Photo 7. Nisbet’s pass was behind the winger. And the chance was lost.
Joe Newell was a real lynchpin in everything Hibs tried to do on Saturday, regularly finding himself in a position to get his head up and play the ball forward. What a joy it must have been for the midfielder to have two such willing runners as Nisbet and the tireless Youan.
Nisbet was a cut above any other player on the park in this contest, demonstrating just how much strength and speed he managed to add to his game during a long spell recovering from ACL surgery; he’s become a poster boy for how to bounce back from the sort of knee injury that might once have ended a career.
Whether he was burning off markers to chase a through ball (Photo 8) or losing Atkinson at the crucial corner to bury Paul Hanlon’s knock-down (Photo 9), the striker more than deserved his Man of the Match honours. If Youan could have found a final ball to go with his running (see Photos 10 and 11), he might have rivalled his team-mate in the voting.
But it was Nisbet who carried Hibs in the final third, either dropping off, pinning defenders or simply running off them into space (see Photo 12).
The contrast with the entire Hearts attack, current Scotland international Lawrence Shankland included, was stark. Naismith complained after the game about his team managing to get into the opposition final third – only for everything to fizzle out.
Photos 13 and 14 illustrate exactly what the former Scotland, Rangers and Everton forward was talking about. Shankland holds up play and finds Jorge Grant demanding the ball. With options to get at the Hibs back four, Grant then chooses the square pass to Halliday and the attack just fades away.
It has to be said, too, that Naismith’s tactical changes in pursuit of an equaliser didn’t exactly produce fireworks, with the move to a front three possibly looking good on paper – but appearing wildly disjointed on the pitch, with he spacing between the forwards (see Photo 15) meaning Hearts could only possibly get through the home defences by someone playing an absolute worldie of a pass.
With the exception of an injury-time free-kick straight into the wall, in fact, Hearts didn’t produce a single clear-cut chance in the closing 20 minutes at Easter Road. On a day when they lost a goal to a set-piece, that lack of oomph up front will be every bit as concerning as their wobbles at the back.
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