It was about as bad a way to open the new Premiership season as could've been imagined.
This new era at Hibs, it seems, still carries the same flaws as the one that came before it. Sunday's 3-0 defeat at St Mirren will have felt achingly familiar to the 1300 travelling supporters who made their way to Paisley. Glaring chances missed, mistakes made then duly punished, and a sense that there remains a psychological frailty about this team.
The way they folded and went under after Roland Idowu's opener was doubled by Oisin Smyth should set alarm bells ringing for David Gray, who will, if he wasn't already, be well aware of the task facing him this season. The tentative optimism from the Premier Sports Cup campaign was washed away with this result, and its finer details do not make for great reading.
Here, we delve into the StatsBomb data beneath a torrid afternoon for Hibs.
Aside from the expected goals disparity, which we'll get to shortly, the most frustrating takeaway for Gray will be his side conceding three goals from four shots on target. St Mirren's first, in fairness, was an excellent finish from Idowu, even if the Hibs defending which preceded it was poor. For their own part - and this ties in to the xG numbers, too - Hibs simply did not work Ellery Balcombe in the home goal enough, hitting the target just twice from 15 attempts.
The graphic below suggests the openings they created should have been more than enough to, at the very least, register more shots on target. Hibs finished the afternoon was 1.75xG to St Mirren's 0.85, showing quite plainly that the home side made the very most of the chances that came their way, while Gray's side did not.
The most glaring chance of the day fell to Dylan Vente, who somehow couldn't divert Jordan Obita's cross (an effective weapon that Hibs could make much more of) into the net from point-blank range. StatsBomb rated the opportunity at 0.58xG - meaning their model would expect it to be converted 58 times out of 100. That estimate does, in all honesty, feel a little too generous towards Vente, who will no doubt still be playing the moment on repeat in his head. That moment still represented a significant chunk of Hibs' xG on the day, but even without it, Hibs would still have ended the day ahead of St Mirren by that metric.
That's scant consolation to the supporters who quite justifiably headed for the exits after St Mirren's third, nor is it to suggest that Hibs deserved more from this game. These StatsBomb numbers always require context, and in this instance they indicate that Hibs should not have lost this game in that manner. But that they did so anyway feels ominous. If afternoons like Sunday were few and far between, it would be easier to point to the data and suggest it was an aberration - StatsBomb calculates that, based on the underlying numbers, Hibs should win that game 60% of the time. But, as supporters well know, this was not an isolated incident, rather a continuation of a theme that ran through the 2023/24 campaign.
Afterwards, Gray admitted he was struggling to find positives, and there were few, even in the way of individual displays. Obita's crossing was threatening at times, and StatsBomb rates him as providing the most On-Ball Value, but the theme of the day was players struggling to have any meaningful impact on proceedings. The general rule for the passing network graphic below is the less blue you see surrounding players' names the better...
Unfortunately for Hibs, things won't be getting any easier in the coming weeks. Attention now turns swiftly to a double-header with champions Celtic, who smashed four past Kilmarnock on Sunday. In fact, only once before the end of September do Hibs face any side who finished outside of last season's Premiership top six.
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If there are any positives to emerge from a nightmare start to the campaign, it's that surely the deficiencies on show will accelerate the recruitment process. Gray desperately needs reinforcements to a squad that is lacking in depth, as was painfully evident in Paisley. The head coach has struck a diplomatic tone in emphasising the need to find 'the right players', and noting the wider slowing of transfer business this summer. But, inwardly, he must feel as though he's not currently being given the best chance to succeed.
There are still weeks to run before the window is closed, and things could change substantially by the time it does. But everything about Sunday - the result, the performance, the underlying numbers - makes it clear there is still much work for Hibs to do.
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