Hibs pay penalty of away form

Aberdeen 2 - 1 Hibs
MIXU PAATELAINEN would be the first to admit there are many imperfections he will have to address as he bids to transform Hibs into the sort of outfit he is intent on creating at Easter Road.

The Hibs boss, only three months into the job, has stressed it will take time to do so, but there's little doubt he'll already have identified one glaring frailty – namely his side's away form.

While the Edinburgh club can boast a home record second only to that of the Old Firm, it has escaped the notice of many that for a side with UEFA Cup ambitions, Hibs have managed just four wins "on the road" in the League all season.

Many have, rightly, focused on the abysmal run of form which saw Hibs plummet from topping the table to eighth place in the space of three miserable months, but for a side with pretensions to be "the best of the rest," four victories in 18 attempts and only 15 goals scored in the process is a woeful record.

It is, of course, not a new phenomenon. Both Tony Mowbray and John Collins struggled with an away day fragility in each of the previous two seasons, but it has again proved to be Hibs' Achilles heel. Compounding the problem is the fact that on no fewer than six occasions Hibs have taken the lead but have been unable to hold on to it. And that has been the difficulty over the opening two matches of the five game "mini League" in which Hibs are currently involved, a mere point garnered from visits to Tannadice and Pittodrie despite Dean Shiels giving them the lead on each occasion as he's taken his goals tally for the season to ten.

That Hibs haven't gone on to win each match and in doing so taken a tight grip on third place has been down to basic and entirely avoidable errors.

Even although, as Paatelainen admitted, Hibs had hardly struck top form against Aberdeen, they, nevertheless, looked well on their way to climbing above Euro rivals Motherwell and Dundee United, who had drawn earlier in the day, when Shiels struck, albeit against the run of play, with a trademark goal as he rode the challenges of three defenders before slotting the ball under Dons goalkeeper Jamie Langfield.

But, as has happened all too often away from home, Paatelainen then saw his side strike what he described as "the button that destroys us", Martin Canning and Ian Murray having seemingly neutered the threat of Darren Mackie, looking on in horror as the Aberdeen substitute, on the pitch barely 60 seconds, slid the ball home from the tightest of angles.

"A lack of communication," was the explanation offered by Murray afterwards, perhaps a reasonable excuse given that Hibs, again, fielded a new-look back four with Abdel Zarabi benched and the former Easter Road skipper asked to fill his least favoured position, left-back.

If that was disappointing, what happened thereafter was simply inexcusable. Thierry Gathuessi, having given away a needless penalty which denied his side two precious points six days earlier, unforgivably made the same mistake, nudging Dons striker Lee Miller in the back when he posed no threat at the edge of the penalty area.

As in the match at Tannadice when Paatelainen felt Gathuessi's victim that day, Mark De Vries, had gone down too easily, Miller made the most of the incident although referee Stuart Dougal had no hesitation in pointing to the spot, allowing the former Hearts striker to claim what proved to be the winner.

Both Paatelainen and Murray were adamant Dougal had got it wrong, the Hibs boss claiming: "Watching it on television it was not a penalty in my mind. If the referee says it is a penalty so be it, but to me it might have been a penalty in volleyball but not football."

Murray was equally indignant. He said: "I think Thierry's reputation went ahead of him following last week. It was never a penalty."

And that, insisted Murray, was what led to Gathuessi being red carded by Dougal two minutes later, the Cameroon internationalist reacting angrily to being penalised for a challenge to the extent he ignored the warning of a yellow card being flashed to continue his tirade, despite the desperate attempts of his team-mates to usher him away from the scene, to the extent an early bath became inevitable.

Gathuessi would barely have had time to remove his boots before he was joined in the dressingroom by Colin Nish, who had barely spent eight minutes on the pitch having replaced Steven Fletcher who, like his strike partner Abdessalam Benjelloun had proved largely ineffective, before provoking Dougal into a straight red card for presumably saying something out of turn.

Exactly what was said wasn't revealed but Paatelainen admitted: "If players talk to the referees then they are asking for trouble, simple as that. Both players should know better, if you start arguing with the referee you lose every time."

The Hibs boss, though, admitted he was surprised Dougal, who had sent off Hibs kids Sean Lynch and Dermott McCaffrey at the same venue almost exactly a year ago, had indulged in "dialogue with the players, arguing with them". As for Nish, without elaborating, Paatelainen commented: "If you talk to the referee, call him names, then there's no hiding. There are no excuses. Our players should know better than that, it's disappointing."

Shiels, who had tried to act as peacemaker with Gathuessi, hinted, however, that he and his team-mates were less than pleased with Dougal who has earned himself a reputation in recent seasons among the Hibs support of reaching all too readily for the cards when their players are involved, a booking for former Hearts midfielder Scott Severin's late, late challenge on Murray which left the Easter Road player writhing in agony, only serving to whip up their sense of injustice on this occasion.

The Northern Ireland ace said: "It's not for me to talk about the referee or Thierry.

"I don't want to give the referee any limelight because I think that's what some of them want."

After the dust had settled on a match which hadn't promised such fireworks in a disappointing first 45 minutes, Paatelainen insisted, again, that the result hadn't dealt a hammer blow to Hibs' UEFA Cup dream although Motherwell now lie two points ahead with two games in hand.

He said: "I was gutted to lose the game but I must say we didn't play well, our passing was poor. Aberdeen committed lots of players forward in the first half and we were basically playing man for man at the back.

"We wanted to stay positive and hope to hit them on the counter because we had lots of room and free players but our passing let us down, we were careless.

"But we still have a chance of third place. We are two points behind Motherwell which is nothing, it's one victory, and we go for it."

Nevertheless, Hibs' precaution of putting their name forward for the InterToto Cup looks more and more likely to be their route into Europe next season.