Hibs manager Paul Heckingbottom has explained where his side went wrong in their recent defeat to Motherwell at Fir Park.
Goals from Sherwin Seedorf, Liam Donnelly and Jermaine Hylton secured an impressive victory for the Well, but an equally disappointing afternoon for the Hibees.
Heckingbottom has spoken about why it went so wrong for his side on their trip to North Lanarkshire.
He told the Edinburgh Evening News: “One v one situations went wrong for us. A pretty team got dominated in one v ones at key moments. It happened in our box and their box.
“We didn’t have enough shots for the situations we got in. When we did, it didn’t go our way. They were better than us in the final third.
“We were dominated at set plays, they won too many headers from corners—one led to a penalty. They were dominant in wide areas and that cost us. You’ve all heard the saying that hard work beats talent when talent doesn’t work hard. We worked hard but we were too easy to play against.”
Major improvement is needed at Hibs and Heckingbottom knows that
Hibs just seemed to lack a bit of bottle against the Steelmen. It was pretty even up until Seedorf’s strike, but once that hit the net, there was only going to be one winner.
Motherwell hit the post, worked Ofir Marciano plenty of times and should have had another penalty when Steven Whittaker dragged Hylton to the floor.
If Stephen Robinson’s side showed a bit more cutting edge, it could have made a bad afternoon a terrible one for Heckingbottom. Whilst Hibs put some nice plays together going forward, they were lucky not to concede six for a second time this term.
Heckingbottom knows improvement is needed at Easter Road. If they continue to play like this, Hibs will be bottom six. He needs to get them firing at one end of the park and tighten them up at the other.
They’ve conceded 14 goals in four games and sit in ninth heading into the international break. Things need to change at Hibs before their form completely nosedives.