Hibs Fight Back Under Caretaker Potter but Face Big Questions
It has been a bruising week at Easter Road. Popular, relatively successful, and deeply embedded in the club, David Gray was still told he was no longer the man to lead Hibs forward – and it took just six league games for that verdict to land.
Into that emotional void stepped Jonatan Johansson’s fellow coach David Potter, back for a second spell on the staff and suddenly the public face of a wounded dressing room. His message was simple: absorb the blow, cling to the positives, drag the mood upwards.
For 45 minutes, it fell flat.
Aside from the industry and spark of Callum Wright, Hibs looked tight and tentative. Passes went astray, touches were heavy, and an Aberdeen side built to spring forward on the break happily feasted on cheap turnovers. The visitors’ counter-attacking lanes opened up again and again, exactly the scenario a fragile home crowd had feared.
Hibs trudged off to a murmur, not a roar.
After the interval, though, something shifted. Hibs came out with a different edge – more direct, more aggressive, more willing to play forward early and fight for second balls. The anxiety that had gripped them in the first half loosened. They started pinning Aberdeen back, forcing the game to be played in the away half rather than their own.
The pressure finally told. The equaliser felt earned, not gifted, the product of a team willing to raise the tempo and take risks. On the balance of that second-half display, Hibs merited their point.
Yet as the international break arrives, the same awkward questions hang in the air.
- Why can this Hibs side almost never stitch together a complete 90 minutes?
- Why do they drift through opening halves before waking up in the second?
- And, beneath all of that, is there enough quality in this squad to match the club’s ambitions?
Those problems now land squarely on the desk of the next permanent manager. With club football pausing for three weeks, the search for that figure becomes the storyline, overshadowing even the fightback on the pitch.
While Hibs wrestle with identity and consistency, Aberdeen’s picture is clearer under Stephen Robinson. Early in the campaign, as his team laboured in a 4-3-3, he delivered the eyebrow-raising line that “shape is for pundits”. Results and performances soon tested that theory.
Since then, he has gone back to what he knows best: three centre-backs, two strikers, and the kind of structure that brought him sustained success at St Mirren. The impact has been obvious. Aberdeen look tougher to break down, sharper in their press, and far more dangerous when they burst forward, especially with the pace they carry up top.
Two names have underpinned that improvement. At the back, Mats Knoester has emerged as the club’s standout defender by some distance, reading danger early and bringing calm to the back line. In midfield, Afeez Aremu has been everywhere – snapping into challenges, recovering possession, then keeping things simple to launch attacks. Between them, they have changed the feel of this Aberdeen side.
That is why the manner of the dropped points will grate with Robinson. For all Hibs’ second-half surge, Aberdeen had their platform. Kevin Nisbet, in the form of his season, produced a superb touch, turn and finish to put them in front, extending his scoring run to three games in a row. From there, Aberdeen should have managed the contest.
Instead, a rash challenge from Jack Milne opened the door. One moment of ill-discipline, one unnecessary decision, and the control Aberdeen had worked so hard to establish slipped away. Hibs grabbed their route back, and the away dugout knew exactly where to point the finger.
Nisbet’s streak raises its own issue for Aberdeen. He is delivering, but who else will shoulder the scoring load over the long haul? That question lingers, even as the broader trajectory improves.
For Robinson, the early weeks were torrid. Now, with a more familiar system restored and key players stepping up, he can at least see foundations being laid for a more promising season.
Hibs, by contrast, are still searching for theirs.
