It was the same old story for David Gray as he watched his Hibs side lose 3-0 to Celtic today.
The Hibees boss has previously admitted he feels like a broken record when assessing his team’s performances as time and time again decent displays are let down by a failure to take chances and giving up cheap goals.
The visitors could have found themselves ahead early on at Celtic Park but then saw the hosts break up the other and and take a fifth-minute lead through Arne Engels.
Gray’s side continued to give a good account of themselves throughout the game but couldn’t find the back of the net, as has been the case throughout the campaign.
To paint the picture further, Celtic goalkeeper Kasper Schmeichel was given the man-of-the-match award for his string of saves that kept his side comfortable.
It was another day on which the Hibs boss watched his players carry out his instructions pretty well but ultimately come away with nothing because of failures in key moments.
Gray has Hibs mixed feelings
Asked post-match if he had mixed feelings, Gray told BBC Scotland: “Very much so. Firstly, I’m really disappointed to lose the game.
“Coming here is always going to be a real tough test. But to lose the game 3-0…straight away we’ll never accept losing games of football.
“On the flip side of that, everything I asked the players to do – the effort, the game plan, the way we went about what we tried to do – was there for large parts of the game.
“But I think the clear takeaways from the game is when you get big opportunities, especially against this level of opposition, you need to take them.
“And that’s definitely cost us today because their goalkeeper gets man-of-the-match which doesn’t happen here often.
“The positives from that are the attacking intent but we came away from the game losing 3-0 so I’m not going to be overly positive for that reason. I think once the emotion comes out of it in a few days, there was a lot of good things to come out of it.
Story of Hibs season
It was then suggested to Gray that, while Schmeichel performed well, Hibs’ attackers shouldn’t even have given him the chance to make the saves.
He agreed and pointed out the champions showed their ruthlessness at the other end which tells another story.
And he’s left bemoaning the same old story of the campaign for the Easter Road side.
He added: “He’s a top goalkeeper, played at the very highest level, but I don’t believe he should have the opportunity to save them.
“But it’s probably the timing of the opportunities. The first one comes really early, if you get your noses in front the game changes. And then they get their first chance of the game and go and score, which shows the clinical nature they’ve got.
“It has been a little bit the story of our season that we’re not taking the chances.”