By Lewis Laird
Hibs progressed to the quarter-final stage of the League Cup for the fourth year in a row with a 1-0 victory over Dundee.
The only goal of the game came from Jamie Murphy, who slotted the ball home into the net after a nice counter-attacking move.
The game started as a bit of a stalemate between the sides, with neither really breaking each other down and being forced crosses into box or efforts from long-range.
After a spell of both sides failing to really threaten either goal towards the end of the half, Hibs started to probe the Dundee defence, Kevin Nisbet coming nearest to making it 1-0 but could only blaze his effort over the bar.
Hibs did manage to grab that all important opening goal after 43 minutes though. A well-worked counter-attack allowed Nisbet to play in Murphy down the left, with acres of space to run into through on goal. Similar to his finish last week against Celtic, he slotted the ball home into the far corner brilliantly, past Dundee number one Jack Hamilton.
The away side thought they were back on terms shortly after the break. A long throw-in was flicked on in the box and found its way to Alex Jakubiak who was standing alone, in an offside position. The linesman on the near-side left his flag down, so play continued.
The Dundee striker missed at the first shot from close range, hitting the crossbar but it fell straight back to him to tap the ball home. Much to the disappointment of the Englishman, the assistant’s flag was then raised for offside.
From that point forward, both sides didn’t really create too many opportunities with the substitutes killing off the game. Jack Ross will be pleased to see his side progress and they will receive their fate for the next round of the cup in Sunday’s draw, as they look to make it to Hampden once again. Here are three things we learned.
Midfield battle
Going into the game, the midfield battle was always going to be intriguing. Despite being in the Championship, you could argue that Dundee have Premiership level central midfielders with the likes of Charlie Adam and Shaun Byrne.
With Dundee starting three in the middle and Hibs two, the Championship side tried to beat them with the numbers in there. It was a tight one with both possessing quality through the match but ultimately Hibs were the side to come out as victors in the end.
Hibs’ clinical quartet
With a front four like Martin Boyle, Murphy, Nisbet and Christian Doidge, it has the ability to cause trouble against most sides in the country, so it was going to be a tough task for the Dundee defence to keep them at bay.
In the end they did well, dealing with most troubles, but the Hibs attack showed exactly what they were about with the goal. In just a few touches, they found themselves through on goal and Murphy finished off.
Defensively solid
In several games this season both sides have leaked goals and not been at their best defensively. However, this was the opposite and much more solid for both sides.
During the game, there wasn’t too many clear cut chances, with the majority of efforts coming from range. If both teams can carry that on for the rest of the season, they will do just fine.