Difficult to find the positives
Hibs boss frustrated by display of his own and the officials as Hibs go down once again...

In truth, very few people expected Hibs to get a result against Celtic yesterday afternoon but for a period at the beginning of the game, there was always the hope that a much changed home side would do something to upset the apple cart as Hibs pressed forward with a much improved Scott Brown looking to take on players down one side and a new front pairing of McManus and Dobbie also looking to get the ball to feet and cause the current league leaders problems on the deck.  However, any good work that was being done in that opening spell was quickly undone as Hibs conceded two soft goals in the opening half hour to effectively kill off the tie as far as Bobby Williamson was concerned.

“We’ve conceded bad goals and have to hold our hands up to that.  It was always going to be difficult, Celtic are prepared to concede corners and not goals so we knew it was going to be difficult. We started the second half poorly and gave away a third goal, making it even harder.”  Making life hard for themselves seems to be part and parcel of Hibs season as silly and/or early goals damage any sort of progress that seems to be being made on the park.  Giving these goals away though only breeds frustration, something that the Hibs boss was certainly feeling come 5 O'clock.  “It was a very frustrating afternoon, I thought we had a lot of possession and a lot of pressure. Celtic defended well as you would expect, but I thought we could have got something out of the game, the 4-0 I think flattered Celtic and we are of course disappointed that we have managed to concede these goals.”

Stephen Dobbie - another to join the massed injury ranks  (sns)

Frustration is also something that wasn't just caused by his own charges as Dougie McDonald and his officiating staff proceeded to turn a blind eye to some shenanigans going on from Celtic's playing staff, despite it being just yards in front of their faces!  While no-one can question the validity of the first goal, softly allowed as it was, the second was clearly a foul.  “The referee allowed the second one but Larsson was showing his studs when getting the ball away from the goalkeeper, it certainly looked like his studs came down on top of the ball."  With Neil Lennon giving Scott Brown a 'hard time' also, another incident overlooked by the officials, Williamson added, "But it’s up to the referee to see what he sees, unfortunately he did not see Neil Lennon kicking Scott Brown in the box, and his assistant did not see that either.  I don’t think that it was a vicious kick but it was enough to make him go down when he was going for the ball, and I think we should have been awarded a penalty for that – but we never got it.”

Still, another week over and a week to forget for Hibs fans everywhere although if Hibs had got one or two of the breaks they deserved, the end result, both last week and yesterday, could have looked that little bit different.  Breaks certainly came along during the opening twenty minutes or so at Easter Road but once again none were taken.  “They don’t come any harder than this last week, we’ve lost a cup final that quite a lot of people expected us to win. We never expect to win, we hoped to do so and went out and gave it our best but as I said last week on the day we just did not get the breaks I felt and they did, and that was the difference. But against Celtic I thought we started the game very positively and we did trouble Celtic at times."  One player who did look like making that difference was Stephen Dobbie, something that Williamson picked up on after the match.  "I thought Dobbie was doing well dropping off, picking up balls and getting at them. Scott Brown had a reasonable game as well but it is difficult to look at the positives after you have suffered such a defeat. We now need to pick the bones over the positives in the next few days and suffer the negatives.”

With Dobbie now out after being stretchered off during the second half, the last thing that Williamson needed was for another player to join the mounting absentee list.  Jonathan Baillie however has now been added to it in place of Yannick Zambernardi who marked his return to first team football in the same half before Baillie's 'handbags' incident which left Williamson a little frustrated but unwilling to criticise the under-fire whistler.  “It did not really see the sending off incident to be honest, by all accounts though the boy has trampled Baillie, and Jonathan has put his head into his chest. Don’t think it could have done a lot of damage there but the referee was quick to show the red card, but we can’t condone anyone putting their heads into anything apart from the ball.”  Bobby now has two games to sort out his defensive frailties but with Murdock, Doumbe and Zambernardi all back for the visit of Motherwell on Wednesday night, there can be a small sigh of relief breathed that the red card didn't apply to a player elsewhere on the park.