Marijan Cabraja has third place on his mind as he admitted the league is a marathon, not a sprint.
Lee Johnson and his Hibs side lost out on Friday night at a packed out Easter Road against St Johnstone in a result the summer recruit described as 'really painful'. That defeat allowed Aberdeen and St Mirren to swoop into third and fourth spot with victories over Motherwell and Dundee United in the hunt to be best of the rest behind Celtic and Rangers.
The likes of star striker Kevin Nisbet is close to a return after a long-term stint on the sidelines with Cabraja adamant that with the quality of the squad at the disposal of the capital side, there is no reason why they can't land third spot come the end of the season. He 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.
READ MORE: Lee Johnson dismisses Hibs red card factor as reason for St Johnstone second half dismay
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“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.”
Kyle Magennis was sent-off in the 2-1 comeback defeat from Callum Davidson's men, but Cabraja says none of his Hibs team-mates are pointing the finger at the midfielder.
Three minutes after his dismissal Nicky Clark levelled the scoring at Easter Road before Stevie May popped up in the 82nd minute with what proved to be the winner.
He added: “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.”
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