Lee Johnson says returning players from injury now give him a new Hibs headache.
The Hibees boss is set to have Rocky Bushiri, Kyle Magennis, Elias Melkersen and Demetri Mitchell all fit ahead of the weekend's Premiership tussle against Motherwell after their respective fitness concerns. It means he is going from having just enough options to get by to needing to trim down his Hibs team come the next couple of transfer windows.
But it's a position Johnson would rather start from than the other way around. He said: "When you get a lot of 20-25 year olds with experience, like we’ve got, it does become tricky to manage those guys. They have the experience and they have the desire and the hunger to play as well as being their agents’ golden pay cheque, so they are on the phone every five minutes.
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"But they are probably not as mature as the senior players and sometimes feel victimised, so clear communication and having an open-door policy is really big going forward.
“When you have 27/28 players and maybe only eight or nine are regulars, you do the math. It’s not easy. You end up bored and not having the carrot at the end of the week and that hampers your progression.
"We need to reduce the squad and over the next couple of windows the aim is to do that – and increase the quality.
"But it is better to start from a position of being slightly swollen because we can use the budget well to move people out and bring others in.”
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