You do wonder if these Hibs players can handle the pressure.

Not in the pursuit of three points at a far-flung venue mere days before an Edinburgh derby, or bouncing back from a dire defeat, but in producing a standard of football that gains the approval of Derek Adams.

It's not often the manager of Ross County hits national headlines so spectacularly, not least on a weekend when Celtic lost at home and Rangers won the League Cup. So, you simply have to hand it to Adams for producing such an unexpectedly bonkers post-match rant that he found himself cast as Scottish football's main character for following few days.

I'm no veteran interviewer, by any stretch, but you do get a sense for when a manager has already decided he's going off-piste regardless of the first question sent his way. Adams gave the BBC Sportscene reporter behind the camera about 10 seconds on his actual question about the manner of Saturday's last-gasp defeat to Dundee, before careering violently into a lengthy tirade that will be fiendishly difficult to top in the end-of-season patter compilations.

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"It's one of the worst games I've ever seen," he says with the exasperation of a man who found his own previous 10 seconds of sugarcoating utterly intolerable. And with that, he's off - "if that's the standard... wow, any chance?", "the standard is shocking, it's so poor", "if I'm a paying customer, I'm not coming back to watch that" and, just in case there was any ambiguity over how Adams felt - "it's rubbish, it really is." If you listen really closely, you can just about hear the County press officer's soul leaving their body in the background.

It was remarkable enough even without the piece-de-resistance: "I’ve left a team in League Two that’s miles better than this team. Miles. That’s saying something. We had the bottom team budget in League Two and were 100 times better than this – one hundred times!"

County were accused of unimaginatively plucking off the rickety carousel that houses Scottish football managers when they appointed Adams for a third time but, in fairness, telling players they are several orders of magnitude worse than an unremarkable side in the basement of English football is certainly a motivational tactic never before seen on these shores.

Adams quickly issued an apology to his players on Monday morning, presumably after they all decided against retiring en-masse over the weekend, albeit he did not back down on his overall assessment of Scottish football. "It's up to the players to go and prove me wrong," he said defiantly, an interesting take on how they should react to being told they're 100 times worse than Morecambe.

And, of course, how they react is certainly of interest to Hibs.

The obvious conclusion to draw is that this will be a thoroughly demoralising episode for the Staggies, as even Adams' belated attempt to argue his missive should light a fire under the team seems a little flimsy. I'm unsure that 'I think you're rubbish but I'm open to you changing my mind' as a battle cry is going to have Adams' troops flinging themselves selflessly into the breach, but only time will tell.

The fatalistic streak in the Hibs support, though, might just evoke fear that County are now inevitably bound to turn up and play like Manchester City on Saturday, so determined are they to ensure Adams eats his words. Having watched as much of their defeat to Dundee as could reasonably be expected of anyone, I can declare with some confidence that they are not going to put on an exhibition in enthralling football when Nick Montgomery's side come to town.

Adams was right, at least, in that his team's weekend outing, lost to a stoppage time winner from Joe Shaughnessy, was eye-bleeding stuff. But having watched plenty of turgid fare across the Scottish Premiership in 2023, it has often felt like matches are set up to be devoid of entertainment, rather than the players on the pitch simply being rubbish.

County are one of several teams adopting a 5-3-2 formation this season, and while that doesn't have to mean defensive football, managers are deploying it that way. On Saturday, they had seven defensive-minded outfield players in their team - three centre-backs, two wing-backs who play like full-backs, and a right-back in the middle of the park alongside a sitting midfielder.

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Goalkeeper Ross Laidlaw went long more often than not, County throw-ins involved launching it high up the line and getting bodies around the second ball, and I even caught the talented Yan Dhanda aimlessly launching a punt over his own head at one point. If you set up with conservative players in a conservative shape, you'll probably get conservative football, no?

Montgomery's possession-based 4-4-2 hasn't always clicked since his September arrival, but he is one of a few managers attempting to be progressive in his approach. 

On Saturday, it's about finding a way to impose their game on County, and not getting drawn into a war of attrition, and that begins by lifting the intensity that was sorely lacking in Perth. Montgomery batted away the noise around Adams' comments in his Tuesday press conference, maintaining that Hibs remain solely focused on themselves.

Players talk, though, and whose professional pride reflex would not be triggered by a rival manager disparaging the quality of the league, and, by extension, you and your colleagues? Some might just see it as an opportunity to go and show what they're about, as Adams' words have shone a spotlight on this game, and himself, that may not otherwise have been present.

It's now over to Hibs to ensure it's another bad day for him and his team.