Nick Montgomery

[Jones28]

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He didn't really - Obita's red card at Dundee was the only enforced change from that match to the Aberdeen game, and we could easily have kept the formation from that game. We'd gone 352 away to Celtic earlier in the season, as well as in the cup games so it was always an option.

To say it's forced does him a disservice though, there's a whole load of alternative options to a 352 that Gray could have used at that point. He chose 352, and chose to bring in Iredale, Smith and Rocky and kept that system despite not winning against Aberdeen.

Forced is maybe overplaying it, but there wasn't much to suggest DG was looking to make a change. He was committed to that 4-2-3-1 for the majority of the first round of fixtures and quickly reverted back to it on the couple of times he made the change.

What would have been lunacy is not sticking with it, I think we could all see at that game how much more comfortable we looked, and the difference we had playing 2 strikers was night and day.

[Since452]

Montgomery only has himself to blame. He took over a squad who were bottom of the league after 3 league games but had just pumped Luzern out of Europe and beaten Aberdeen at Pittodrie. They were hardly a poor team. He was a poor manager.

Any manager in the league would have loved that squad. Especially post January.

[Unseen work]

Mayenda has been brilliant for Sunderland this season but somehow barely got a sniff with us despite looking positive.

He signed a player he knew in Triantis to be our starting centre half only to realise he’s not very good there and played him centre mid.

Remember when he put Landers on for Vente against Aberdeen in the semi final? Think we were 1-0 down at the time.

Constant weird subs and a desire to put young boys on at every opportunity - I’ve no issue with young boys getting a chance. But it needs to be at the right time, deserved and with the right players around them.

I’m a fan of Whittaker and thought he done really well, but I’m absolutely convinced Monty played him when he did due to his age as he knew it would break a record.

His style of football was brutal and interviews torture

I had no faith in us ever winning a game with him and thought teams were delighted to play us

[Since452]

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Mayenda has been brilliant for Sunderland this season but somehow barely got a sniff with us despite looking positive.

He signed a player he knew in Triantis to be our starting centre half only to realise he’s not very good there and played him centre mid.

Remember when he put Landers on for Vente against Aberdeen in the semi final? Think we were 1-0 down at the time.

Constant weird subs and a desire to put young boys on at every opportunity - I’ve no issue with young boys getting a chance. But it needs to be at the right time, deserved and with the right players around them.

I’m a fan of Whittaker and thought he done really well, but I’m absolutely convinced Monty played him when he did due to his age as he knew it would break a record.

His style of football was brutal and interviews torture

I had no faith in us ever winning a game with him and thought teams were delighted to play us

Totally agree. You knew from his first few interviews he was going to shoehorn youngsters in and I got slaughtered for saying it. He was hopeless.

[Centre Hawf]

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Mayenda has been brilliant for Sunderland this season but somehow barely got a sniff with us despite looking positive.

He signed a player he knew in Triantis to be our starting centre half only to realise he’s not very good there and played him centre mid.

Remember when he put Landers on for Vente against Aberdeen in the semi final? Think we were 1-0 down at the time.

Constant weird subs and a desire to put young boys on at every opportunity - I’ve no issue with young boys getting a chance. But it needs to be at the right time, deserved and with the right players around them.

I’m a fan of Whittaker and thought he done really well, but I’m absolutely convinced Monty played him when he did due to his age as he knew it would break a record.

His style of football was brutal and interviews torture

I had no faith in us ever winning a game with him and thought teams were delighted to play us

I honestly felt after the Whittaker stuff that he believed using the young laddies would be a safety blanket for results.

[Paulie Walnuts]

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I honestly felt after the Whittaker stuff that he believed using the young laddies would be a safety blanket for results.

There was absolutely no excuse for Rory Whittaker to be playing last season. He had numerous other options but continued to hang him out to dry.

[Jock O]

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He didn't really - Obita's red card at Dundee was the only enforced change from that match to the Aberdeen game, and we could easily have kept the formation from that game. We'd gone 352 away to Celtic earlier in the season, as well as in the cup games so it was always an option.

To say it's forced does him a disservice though, there's a whole load of alternative options to a 352 that Gray could have used at that point. He chose 352, and chose to bring in Iredale, Smith and Rocky and kept that system despite not winning against Aberdeen.

I agree with this, it was also interesting to see in one of Mckays recent interviews h implied him and DG had been discussing a change in format for a time before it was implemented. Can't remember which one it was to check to see if I picked that up correctly.

[Centre Hawf]

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There was absolutely no excuse for Rory Whittaker to be playing last season. He had numerous other options but continued to hang him out to dry.

The first couple I could understand, I can't remember the injury list at the time but I don't mind a little bit of "next man up" mentality to fill in for a period and give laddies a chance to experience it and see how they cope, and for what it's worth I thought he coped quite well considering early on. But Whittaker's stay in the team stretched itself out into March when it was clear long before that he wasn't quite ready for that level of exposure, total madness that he leaned so heavily on him around winter time in my opinion.

[Smartie]

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Montgomery also had a fair chunk of the squads that finished 5th and 3rd in the seasons either side of his.

This is a good point.

I really wanted to think he was hard done by, as the time he was appointed and the time he left really weren’t ideal.

But the squad has gone on to suggest that it really wasn’t all that bad, especially when you consider he had a decent chunk of time with Maolida and Marcondes in addition.

Montgomery, ultimately, didn’t show anything to suggest he deserved more time and I don’t think history will judge his time at Hibs all that well.

This season we’ve had a chance to see a team play in a consistently effective fashion that is the demonstration of what we’re looking for. Gray’s effectiveness has shown up a few previous incumbents for their flaws.

[Winston Ingram]

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Wee link to an interview about his time at Hibs in which he comes across really well.

Hard to argue with anything he says regardless of how things turned out.

https://x.com/Record_Sport/status/19...oJH5Z7-NQ&s=19

Hard to argue?

Moans about having no money. He arrived after the window shut. He was then able to sign Marcondes, Moalida, Triantis and NWH in Jan.

He seems to be blaming everyone bar himself. If he hadn’t stuck with that bat**** rotational 442 for 26 games we’d have made the top 6 no bother. The boy is utterly deluded.

[B.H.F.C]

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Hard to argue?

Moans about having no money. He arrived after the window shut. He was then able to sign Marcondes, Moalida, Triantis and NWH in Jan.

He seems to be blaming everyone bar himself. If he hadn’t stuck with that bat**** rotational 442 for 26 games we’d have made the top 6 no bother. The boy is utterly deluded.

He didn’t stick with the formation for the entirety of his time. He changed that aspect of it around January or February and we were still pish.

I always thought the style and the way he wanted to play was a far bigger problem than the formation.

[BILLYHIBS]

Wanted us to play out from the back with guys that couldn’t play just never looked confident or comfortable on the ball

Triantis was hopeless as a Centre Half

Used to ask myself what they did at Training all week ?

As someone else said teams were delighted to play us

The Tornadoes used to drill themselves playing out from the back and work on every possible scenario if it failed it was start again playing keep ball piggy in the middle Brownlie Stanton Edwards- Schaedler Cropley Duncan Defence versus Attack playing against ten men free kicks corner kicks - maybe I am being unfair our lot under Monty were panicking under pressure but he still persisted kept doing the same thing expecting a different outcome Nuts !

[WhileTheChief..]

Guy was a disaster of an appointment and should never have been anywhere near us.

Totally out of his depth and no one to blame but himself for how things ended up.

Couldn’t care less what he thinks of us or what he does next. Will be remembered as a dud, if at all.

[Nicho87]

Moments away from jubilation

Sorry Monty but your football was an absolute borefest to watch

Your inability to change from a 4-4-2 cost you the job

Wish him well but no where near good enough

[Johnny_Leith]

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Hard to argue?

Moans about having no money. He arrived after the window shut. He was then able to sign Marcondes, Moalida, Triantis and NWH in Jan.

He seems to be blaming everyone bar himself. If he hadn’t stuck with that bat**** rotational 442 for 26 games we’d have made the top 6 no bother. The boy is utterly deluded.

& Mayenda, who he gave about 30 minutes total to. He’s just played a big part in Sunderland gaining promotion this season.

[HoboHarry]

Apparently just me but he (and others like Maloney, Johnson etc etc) never crosses my mind now that he's gone. He moved on, he's at a good place as indeed we are. Bring on next season with the staff we have and not had...

[Stevie Reid]

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I personally don't think his methods or style would have worked regardless of the recruitment. We of course don't know who he would have signed so it's hard to point at those we brought in and say "they wouldn't have worked" but I don't really see a world where Ekpiteta and O'Hora would have played it out from the back in the manner Monty wanted for example. Rocky is probably our best at it and he struggled for large parts carrying it out.

It's probably archaic of me but I think there's only so much style you can try and put into a Scottish football team that isn't Celtic or Rangers before it becomes counter productive. I don't want to over simplify Gray's style too much but there was a lot of times we would be happy to hit someone on the break with a ball to the big man in Myko or in behind for Boyle, even if the general consensus would be that we would be the favourite or should dominate possession. Then other times we could play actually put our foot on the ball and play our way through teams when they allowed us the chance to do so. That flexibility has been so important to our upturn in form imo, whereas under Montgomery it felt like for large chunks of his spell we were sticking to this rigid system of building it up from the back and never can we think outside the box within the game we were actually playing.

100% agree with all of this. St. Johnstone at ER in the last game we played were very Montgomery-like for me. They passed the ball to death, sometimes playing dozens of passes to only advance about 20 yards up the pitch, and still be in their own half - with us in our defensive shape ahead of them. As well as looking like they were exhausting themselves, they coughed up the ball in dangerous areas and we scored twice as a result. It was style for for the sake of it, and it got them absolutely nowhere.

To finish 3rd you simply have to have more than one way to win a game (one of the reasons I was always advocating for McInnes as manager) - and let's face it, Montgomery's only way didn't win us that many anyway. SDG knew this, and this has been shown many times this season.

Since the amazing run started last season, I went into every game thinking, no matter what type of game it turns out to be, we'll do enough to get a result. You knew we would really show up for the big games too. The only other managers who had me feeling like that about their Hibs teams (at their best) were Lennon and McLeish.

SDG inspires huge amounts of confidence. Montgomery, none at all.

[Ribs1875]

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We just finished third. There is absolutely nothing to suggest that it was equally possible that we were too quick to pull the trigger. By every possible measure it was the correct decision.

We’d have been bottom 6 again this season under him watching his completely mind numbing ‘style’ of play.

Dude, give it a rest!

I am simply saying we would never know how it would have panned out if he had been given time. Your point is valid of us finishing 3rd this season, which is a great achievement. Let's not forget how we got to 3rd from 12th....by giving Gray the time.

We could look a bit further back to when LJ after the derby against Neilsons hearts looked out of a job and a broken man in the interview after the game. We gave him time he turned us around and got us an acceptable enough finish, whilst Neilson got sacked a few months later. Football management can be a toxic relationship with the board and supporters.

[jacomo]

That interview just shows what a poor communicator he is.

First question, Montgomery then drones on for over four minutes, with a litany of excuses and unconvincingly talking himself up.

He was too stubborn and he talked nonsense. I'm not sure what giving him more time would have achieved.

He's now having a successful time coaching at Spurs - I'd imagine Ange will keep him if he stays - so everything worked out ok, for him and us.

[Paulie Walnuts]

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Dude, give it a rest!

I am simply saying we would never know how it would have panned out if he had been given time. Your point is valid of us finishing 3rd this season, which is a great achievement. Let's not forget how we got to 3rd from 12th....by giving Gray the time.

We could look a bit further back to when LJ after the derby against Neilsons hearts looked out of a job and a broken man in the interview after the game. We gave him time he turned us around and got us an acceptable enough finish, whilst Neilson got sacked a few months later. Football management can be a toxic relationship with the board and supporters.

We had him for nearly a season. You claimed it was equally possible that we made the wrong decision by sacking him as it is that we made the right decision by sacking him. That is absolute nonsense based on the evidence we have, rather than an imaginary situation where he improved us so much that we got 3rd place under him.

The guy was an absolute disaster.

[Winston Ingram]

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He didn’t stick with the formation for the entirety of his time. He changed that aspect of it around January or February and we were still pish.

I always thought the style and the way he wanted to play was a far bigger problem than the formation.

Tbf we picked up after the Celtic game. We were undefeated in 6 winning 3 of them.

[Pretty Boy]

He was just unbearably dull (publicly, he may have been a barrel of laughs privately).

Managers who struggle to connect with fans and don't communicate well will always be up against it. We had a whole litany of them in recent times. It also makes you wonder how they get their ideas across in the dressing room and on the training pitch; in Montgomery's case if looked like he simply couldn't. What he wanted players to do was both very simple but very difficult to master, hence why only about 5 teams in the world were any good at it despite everyone trying to ape it. There came a point when he should have just abandoned it and been pragmatic in getting the players to play in a way they understood.

I don't wish him any ill but I don't for a second think he was hard done by as Hibs manager. He was never turning it round, he had as good as a whole season and was better backed than many in a transfer window and we got and were continuing to get worse. Marcondes basically throwing him to the wolves at Pittodrie shows the respect he commanded from the players as well.

[Ribs1875]

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We had him for nearly a season. You claimed it was equally possible that we made the wrong decision by sacking him as it is that we made the right decision by sacking him. That is absolute nonsense based on the evidence we have, rather than an imaginary situation where he improved us so much that we got 3rd place under him.

The guy was an absolute disaster.

I have made zero claims, I sit on the fence. You and I have never been in the shoes of a football manager. We are outsiders looking in and can only speculate. I appreciate the fact football management is chaotic and my opinion is managers are often the scapegoat for the boards of football clubs. He's obviously rated highly enough to walk into a good job in Tottenham several months after his sacking.

You say he was absolute disaster? Then in your reality what does that make Terry Butcher?

[LaMotta]

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Mayenda has been brilliant for Sunderland this season but somehow barely got a sniff with us despite looking positive.

He signed a player he knew in Triantis to be our starting centre half only to realise he’s not very good there and played him centre mid.

Remember when he put Landers on for Vente against Aberdeen in the semi final? Think we were 1-0 down at the time.

Constant weird subs and a desire to put young boys on at every opportunity - I’ve no issue with young boys getting a chance. But it needs to be at the right time, deserved and with the right players around them.

I’m a fan of Whittaker and thought he done really well, but I’m absolutely convinced Monty played him when he did due to his age as he knew it would break a record.

His style of football was brutal and interviews torture

I had no faith in us ever winning a game with him and thought teams were delighted to play us

I think this is a really good summary of his time here.

The only thing I can say in his defence was that his team had a terrible run of awful decisions going against it with zero help from VAR. But then on the flip side he didn't deal with that well in the press IMO ( ie said nothing) when other more experienced manages would have called out early on some of the shocking decisions. It allowed those decisions to slip under the radar.

From listening to Monty and Maloney on TV interviews, I have no idea how the club managed to think those two would be good appointments for a manager's position at Hibs.

[Paulie Walnuts]

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I have made zero claims, I sit on the fence. You and I have never been in the shoes of a football manager. We are outsiders looking in and can only speculate. I appreciate the fact football management is chaotic and my opinion is managers are often the scapegoat for the boards of football clubs. He's obviously rated highly enough to walk into a good job in Tottenham several months after his sacking.

You say he was absolute disaster? Then in your reality what does that make Terry Butcher?

Ok, you didn’t.

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Perhaps the club were to quick to pull the trigger, and equally perhaps the club were right to do so.

[matty_f]

I was all in on Monty when he was quoted for the job. I remember watching the YouTube video of the playoff final and overlooking the fact that his team talk with the players was *really* uninspiring in favour of going with the performance and result his side put in, which were really inspiring.
The talk of the photo on the wall that the players wanted to get their photo onto as winners and the reputation he had for having a team play above its level had me completely sold on him.
I thought it was great that he said he'd play young players and followed that up by playing Whittaker - especially since Johnson before him had explained away a poor January transfer window by saying he needed space in the squad to play young players that he proceeded to ignore for the rest of his time.

His interviews were a concern from early on, he was very uninspiring - genuine, yes, but did I ever get the feeling that he'd have the players running through walls for him like Lennon, Stubbs, or Ross did? No. Far from it.

But interviews weren't important if he delivered on the pitch. We DID have some good performances under Monty but you could count them on one hand.

Far more often we watched teams let us have the ball until we made a mistake, then they'd punish us. Occasionally we'd get it right and it would look great - Tavares at Dundee, for example, or the win at St Johnstone.

But we suffered from having a coach who put his own ego and philosophy before the good of the team, and he rightly paid the price for it.

The style of play he was trying was awful. Dull, boring and, crucially, completely ineffective. Neither the fans nor the players enjoyed it, in fact the only folk who did enjoy it were our opponents.

To bring in the talent in January that he did, at a time where we still had a realistic shot at fourth place, and finish eighth, was piss poor and absolutely sackable.

Every manager has ups and downs with things they can't control, but persistent with Whittaker, for example, did nobody any favours other than our opponents. Insisting on the passing patterns when opponents had us sussed our did nobody any favours.

He seems like a great guy, and I'm sure he did his best at Hibs, I've nothing to criticise for effort or how he conducted himself but he was an awful head coach, we didn't see any players improve under him as we have with Gray, and we're far better without him.

[Paulie Walnuts]

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From listening to Monty and Maloney on TV interviews, I have no idea how the club managed to think those two would be good appointments for a manager's position at Hibs.

Agree. How they’re meant to get a team up for a game is anyone’s guess.

[jacomo]

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I think this is a a really good summary of his time here.

The only thing I can say in his defence was that his team had a terrible run of awful decisions going against it with zero help from VAR. But then on the flip side he didn't deal with that well in the press IMO ( ie said nothing) when other more experienced manages would have called out early on some of the shocking decisions. It allowed those decisions to slip under the radar.

From listening to Monty and Maloney on TV interviews, I have no idea how the club managed to think those two would be good appointments for a manager's position at Hibs.

He's happy to trot out this excuse now. 1 year late.

[LaMotta]

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He's happy to trot out this excuse now. 1 year late.

I remember reading on here from someone that it was club policy decided at boardroom level that we weren't to criticise officials in aftermatch interviews. Not sure if that was true, but there is no doubt to me that didn't do us any favours.

[LaMotta]

i

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I was all in on Monty when he was quoted for the job. I remember watching the YouTube video of the playoff final and overlooking the fact that his team talk with the players was *really* uninspiring in favour of going with the performance and result his side put in, which were really inspiring.
The talk of the photo on the wall that the players wanted to get their photo onto as winners and the reputation he had for having a team play above its level had me completely sold on him.
I thought it was great that he said he'd play young players and followed that up by playing Whittaker - especially since Johnson before him had explained away a poor January transfer window by saying he needed space in the squad to play young players that he proceeded to ignore for the rest of his time.

His interviews were a concern from early on, he was very uninspiring - genuine, yes, but did I ever get the feeling that he'd have the players running through walls for him like Lennon, Stubbs, or Ross did? No. Far from it.

But interviews weren't important if he delivered on the pitch. We DID have some good performances under Monty but you could count them on one hand.

Far more often we watched teams let us have the ball until we made a mistake, then they'd punish us. Occasionally we'd get it right and it would look great - Tavares at Dundee, for example, or the win at St Johnstone.

But we suffered from having a coach who put his own ego and philosophy before the good of the team, and he rightly paid the price for it.

The style of play he was trying was awful. Dull, boring and, crucially, completely ineffective. Neither the fans nor the players enjoyed it, in fact the only folk who did enjoy it were our opponents.

To bring in the talent in January that he did, at a time where we still had a realistic shot at fourth place, and finish eighth, was piss poor and absolutely sackable.

Every manager has ups and downs with things they can't control, but persistent with Whittaker, for example, did nobody any favours other than our opponents. Insisting on the passing patterns when opponents had us sussed our did nobody any favours.

He seems like a great guy, and I'm sure he did his best at Hibs, I've nothing to criticise for effort or how he conducted himself but he was an awful head coach, we didn't see any players improve under him as we have with Gray, and we're far better without him.

Good points again. On the young player thing, given that Whittaker struggled to make any impact at Spartans this season and Mayenda tore up the Championship with Sunderland, it seems crazy that he put so much faith in Whittaker and so little faith in Mayenda. Be interested to hear what senior players like Boyle and Newell thought of that. Maybe Mayenda just didn't show anything in training, but who knows.

Also I think Monty (like Maloney) was terrible at making substitutions. He disrupted the team a number of times with wacky subs - costing us points several times. Changing centre halves causing chaos on the defence, leaving Youan on when we were a goal up (only for Youan to switch off and for us to concede), bringing on Landers at St Mirren, taking off a visibly angry Marcondes at Tynecastle when he was having his best game for us...