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houstonhibbee
17-12-2018, 06:25 AM
I know it’s the Sun but if you can be bothered to read it he has glowing praise for Lennon’s Hibs. Well worth a read

Winston Ingram
17-12-2018, 08:49 AM
https://www.thescottishsun.co.uk/sport/football/3633377/hibs-celtic-submission-mystery-play-bill-leckie/

murray26
17-12-2018, 09:41 AM
That was a great read

DarlingtonHibee
17-12-2018, 09:54 AM
Great read, we were fantastic yesterday, just need the consistency. Coming up for the livi game, fingers crossed 🤞

SirDavidsNapper
17-12-2018, 10:01 AM
Bill Leckie is an excellent journo. His article after we won the League Cup in 2007 was brilliant. He was genuinely moved by Sunshine on Leith. Well worth a read if anyone can find it.

lapsedhibee
17-12-2018, 12:10 PM
SOLVE THIS ONE Hibs stunned Celtic into submission – it’s a mystery that they can’t always play like that, says Bill Leckie

Vykintas Slivka scored a goal against the Hoops that could have been scored by Jurgen Klopp's Liverpool but the Hibees haven't been at that level recently

ONCE upon a time, Hibs called on one Famous Five to score goals for fun.

Now, they could do with Enid Blyton’s lot to solve one of Scottish football’s most baffling mysteries.

Why can’t they ALWAYS play the way they did against Celtic?

Because when they do, when they produce goals like the ones that stunned the Hoops into submission, there really isn’t a team in the land to touch them.

Out of the traps, flowing like fine wine. Harrying, chasing, tackling like demons.

Getting it down, getting it wide, getting it into the box.

Staying cool as ice when the crucial chances drop, burying them with a flourish. You could set this Hibs team to music.

So, how can they also go so long without Neil Lennon being able to get a tune out of them?

There’s lashings of ginger beer and ham sandwiches for the sleuth who works that one out.

Between tearing Hamilton apart 6-0 on the first weekend in October and beating the same opposition 1-0 away from home last week, Lennon’s men lost four and drew three, failing to score four times.

Never mind flowing like wine, in that dismal spell their whole season was gurgling down the stank like flat beer.

All the things they’re best at? Nowhere to be seen. A crack at the top three turned into a flirtation with the bottom five.

This thrilling win didn’t take them one inch up the table.

Yet the way they rediscovered their mojo might just change their entire campaign — and begin a whole new chapter in the remarkable story of a topsy-turvy top-flight power struggle.

Bitter rivals Hearts look to have had their purple patch. Aberdeen are slowly moving up the gears.

Killie are still capable of beating anyone when their first XI are on the pitch.

Livi are buzzing after putting five past the Jambos, while St Johnstone are decent as long as their defence is on it.

Even Rangers, back on top once more, are, by their own manager’s admission, some way off being the finished article.

In short, there isn’t an out-standing side in the pack — not even, on the form they showed here, Celtic themselves.

All of which would tell anyone who saw Hibs produce such a dominant, determined display against the champions that there’s no reason on earth why they can’t aim to at least be best of the rest.

As long as that onlooker was seeing them for the first time. In isolation, in this mood, they are the real deal.

I mean, look at that first goal, scored in the very first minute and created using probably three-quarters of the pitch.

From their right-back, retrieving a hoof down by his own corner flag, through a rat-a-tat of first-time passes into midfield, out to the left, attacking the back four, switching to the right again for a drop of the shoulder and an unerring finish.

It was gorgeous, a goal that could have been scored by Klopp’s Liverpool or Wenger’s Arsenal at their best.

And the thing is, it was no fluke — because anyone who’s watched Hibs under Lennon these past couple of years has seen these kind of moves time and again.

They’re sweeping, orchestral suites of football rising to a crescendo in the opposition box.

We’ve certainly seen their second goal before. Against the same defence no less.

At Parkhead back in October, the same Florian Kamberi drifted into the same hole to lash ferociously past a helpless Craig Gordon.

It was a strike Eden Hazard would have loved to own.

Again, it was no fluke. Whatever the Swiss is for ‘he’s got it in his locker’, well, he definitely has got it in his locker.

It was very much a classic Hibs-type goal to cap off a classic Hibs-type display.

Question is, can they bring another display like it when Rangers come calling on Wednesday?

If they can, it’s an eminently winnable game, which would give them an all-too-rare back-to-back double over the Old Firm and send them flying towards a home derby in the last game of the year.

At which point Lennon sighs: If only it was that simple . . .

If only a manager could freeze a day like this and thaw it out for next time.

If only he could tell them why they got it so right and all they had to do was repeat and enjoy. Be an easy gig then, eh?

Still, it makes Wednesday night in Leith all the more exciting.

It gives everyone at Easter Road belief that the table DOES lie, because there’s no way they should be down among the stragglers.

Truth is, though, that table always tells the truth.

You end up where you are because of the results you don’t get — and those seven Hibs didn’t get between October and December have left them with a whole lot of making up to do.

The only sure thing about their quest being that it will never, ever be dull.