Former Hibs boss Alan Stubbs has warned his old club they risk turning into the Watford of the Scottish game if they sack under-fire Lee Johnson.
Gaffer Johnson is under contract to May 2026 but his future is in doubt after losing six of the last seven games before the World Cup break, slumping from third to eighth in the Premiership table. Last season’s Premier Sports Cup finalists also failed to qualify from the group stage this term, losing at home to Championship side Morton and away to League One outfit Falkirk.
Fans are calling for Johnson’s head but Stubbs – the manager who ended their 114-year wait for Scottish Cup glory by beating Rangers in the 2016 final – insists that chairman Ron Gordon can’t go on hiring and firing bosses based on knee-jerk reactions. Gordon dumped Paul Heckingbottom (now in charge of Championship leaders Sheffield United) just four months after taking over the club in 2019 and followed that by axing Jack Ross just 10 days before a cup final against Celtic. He then punted Shaun Maloney after only 19 games.
If US-based businessman Gordon gets rid of Johnson – who has been in charge for 20 matches – then he’ll be looking for a fifth manager in just three years and Stubbs believes that will tarnish Hibs’ reputation when it comes to potential candidates.
Watford have gone through seven managers in the past two years and Stubbs would hate to see
the Hibees follow suit. He said: “They’re on a difficult run of results but you have to look at the bigger picture.
“Lee has been without his two best strikers – Kevin Nisbet and Martin Boyle – and that has been a major factor in where they find themselves. You can argue that they’ve made 15 signings so they should be able to cope. Like most managers, Lee gets the blame for that but how many of those players did he identify?
“There’s more than one person who should be having a look at themselves here. This break might just have come at the perfect time for the club. By the time they get back to playing games again next month they should have most of their big hitters back.
“Fans’ websites may be running polls on who should replace Lee but what kind of message would that send out? They’d be like a Scottish Watford – they’ve had nine managers since 2019 and you don’t want to be like them because they’re the worst club in England when it comes to a lack of stability.”
Stubbs also points to another reason why Gordon can’t have a revolving door on the manager’s office. He said: “There are times when sacking the manager is the right thing to do but you can’t go chopping and changing all the time because good candidates will think twice about applying for that vacancy. If they think that this is a club in turmoil and they’re likely to be binned after three or four months then why would they bother?
“Also, if Lee is told to leave then my concern would be who Ron Gordon takes his advice from. His son Ian is head of recruitment at the club and he might want to look at the contribution he has made.
“Sacking the manager is always the easy option for a chairman when things aren’t going well but it’s not always the right one. It’s also expensive because most bosses bring three or four members of staff with them and their contracts need to be paid up as well.
“The one thing which might work in Lee’s favour is that the chairman has admitted he made a mistake in sacking Jack Ross when he did. That might give him pause for thought.”
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