Marijan Cabraja insists Hibs are good enough to go the distance in the race for third despite suffering three defeats on the spin and slipping to fifth.
The Croatian admits Friday’s 2-1 submission to St Johnstone was more painful than their 6-1 Parkhead pummelling against Celtic a week earlier. But Cabraja is adamant Lee Johnson’s side have the quality to finish best of the rest come the end of the season - especially when injured stars including Kevin Nisbet and Aiden McGeady return.
Hibs were coasting towards three points when a 70th minute red card for Kyle Magennis opened the door for a Saints smash and grab.The Perth side didn’t need asked twice and left Leith with all three points thanks to headed goals from Nicky Clark and Stevie May. But summer signing Cabraja said: “It's painful, it's really painful. This type of game is more painful to lose than the last game.
“But this is not a sprint, the league is not a sprint. It's a marathon and I’m absolutely confident if we continue to play like this the results will come on longer distance.
“I think Kevin Nisbet is close (to returning). It's better for the squad, it's better for everyone, pushing each other in training and that's what we are doing.
“It's a really good squad and third place. I think we can manage it.”
Cabraja insists nobody blames Magennis for his rush of blood that saw him pick up a second booking in his first start for a year. It proved the turning point in the match. But the left-back insists the remaining 10 men should have dug in to secure the points.
He said: “This is football. No blaming. Kyle knows what he did. He just wanted to do the best for the team.
“It's the first red card of the season and I hope the last one. It impacted the game a lot because we controlled the game totally and were dangerous, aggressive, attacking mentality.
“It happened. The problem was two minutes afterwards we conceded the goal from a corner.
“You want to win the game but you can't attack the same. It was really difficult and then the other header, second one.
“Those games are 1 in 100 that can happen. We should have scored earlier but if we didn't receive the card it was just a matter of time when we would score the second one.
“We spoke in the dressing room, we felt if that corner didn't happen so early, if we defended that corner then probably we would have kept it zero.”
Hibs fans turned out in their largest numbers for a home game in 33 years for the Friday night football trial that saw prices slashed to £10 and £5. But Johnson’s troops failed to send them home happy.
And Cabraja said: “I felt the most for them because you saw them in the stands, full stadium. They were really happy for 70 minutes. I felt we were really good on the pitch but the second goal was missing.”
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