It has not been the instant revival Hibs fans will have dared to dream of when club legend David Gray ascended into the role of head coach.
Seven Premiership matches and only one win, there's been little to shout about at Easter Road so far this season. Free weeks and international breaks have only added to the sense of frustration, but Hibs are now about to hit a run of five uninterrupted fixtures to try and build some sort of momentum, starting away at Dundee United on Saturday.
Before then, we've taken a look at the season to date, analysing the key metrics, assessing individual performances, and looking for indicators of how Gray has changed Hibs' style of play.
Attack yet to find a spark
With just six scored, Hibs have the joint-lowest return in the Premiership so far. Averaging just 1.02 expected goals (xG) per-90 minutes, it's hard to argue that this is an underperformance based on chances created.
Perhaps more concerning, though, is that Hibs' 0.64xG from open play is the third-lowest in the division, ahead of only St Johnstone and Ross County. The last two fixtures have suggested a slight uptick in the rolling average, but it's clear that outwith the headline figure of only six goals, high quality chances have been hard to come by.
The 2-1 defeat to Motherwell, and the 1-0 loss away at Rangers, though, featured several missed opportunities. If Hibs can build on that and find a more clinical edge, things should improve. Individually (among players who have accrued 300-plus minutes), Mykola Kukharevych has posted the highest xG with 1.64 (boosted by his penalty attempt against Rangers), but overall there's an underperformance of -1.12 for the Ukrainian. He's followed by Martin Boyle with 1.27xG. No other player has posted above 1 so far.
Is it a creative issue, or are Hibs simply failing to be ruthless when chances do arise? A bit of both. It's not hard to recall some that you'd put straight into the 'should've scored' bracket. Hibs' xG per-shot (a measure of shot quality) is again the third-lowest in the Premiership, suggesting inefficiency in front of goal. As he did last season, Jordan Obita has been a source of chance creation, with his 1.12 xG-assisted the highest in the squad thus far with Chris Cadden next with 0.64. Junior Hoilett has yet to reach the 300-minute mark, but he has already contributed 0.85xGA, which does bode well moving forward. Generally, though, there have been few standouts in attacking areas.
What should help Gray is being able to field a more settled forward line. The head coach has been able to achieve consistency in selection at the back, and increasingly in midfield, but the front three has chopped and changed due to injuries. With Hoilett making an impact and Boyle returning from injury, the hope will be that greater familiarity breeds greater cohesion. The simple fact remains, though, Hibs must start converting chances into goals at a higher rate.
Case for the defence?
In a frustrating contrast, Hibs are among the league's top five sides for keeping xG conceded down, which is rougly in line with their place in the actual goals conceded table (6th).
How much significance can be placed on this metric when the goals that are going in are proving so costly will, naturally, be up for contentious debate. We wrote last week about how the team has struggled in the key moments, and among those has been a tendency to concede early and late. It's one of those intangible issues that can't be measured on a chart itself, and poses questions around mentality and leadership. It's emphasised by how Gray's Hibs are not conceding a large volume of shots per-90 minutes. The current average is just under 12 - fourth best in the league - and that drops to 9.4 when you take out the matches against Celtic and Rangers.
It suggests that Gray's defensive setup is not opening Hibs' goal up to a barrage of shots, and possibly points to individual errors as his team's undoing. As with missed chances, there are numerous examples to back this up. One area of contrast, however, is that while Hibs haven't been among the worst performers for overall shots conceded, their rate of shots conceded on the counter-attack (1.43 per 90) is 11th in the league overall. That in itself is not particularly high, though, and there are arguably several sides in the Premiership whose conservative style perhaps better insulates them against counter-attacking scenarios.
At an individual level, Marvin Ekpiteta has shown signs of settling after a tricky start. He leads the way on clearances (45), defensive action regains (30), aerial wins (41), and has only been dribbled past once. He and Warren O'Hora are also in the league's top five for blocks made per shot faced. There does seem to be the nucleus of a good central defensive partnership forming, despite recent results.
Style guide
What does the StatsBomb data tell us about Gray's style of play so far? An immediate contrast from last season is the pace with which he wants Hibs to get the ball forward. Their 'pace to goal' is currently third-fastest in the league (compared to being ninth overall last season), implying that they are being encouraged to transition forward quickly.
This is a major shift from Nick Montgomery's possession-based style, and the early evidence is that Hibs are making fewer passes overall. Last season, they averaged 471 per-90, and that has dropped to 382.
The stats also point to an upturn in aggressiveness. StatsBomb's aggression percentage metric looks at the proportion of an opponent's received passes that are pressured, tackled, or fouled. This has increased markedly from 27% last season to 67% this season.
This term, Hibs have made the second-most pressures, and third-most counterpressures per-90 minutes in the league. Last year, they made the fewest pressures per-90 among all 12 teams. The sample sizes, of course, differ quite significantly, but the scale of the increase points to a clear change in defensive style. It's key to note that the effectiveness of how a team presses is not simply defined by how often they do it - and Hibs have had some issues on this front at times. But it does make clear the shift in emphasis since Gray took over.
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And, of course, the obvious point is that these stylistic changes will only satisfy fans if they start yielding results. It comes back to the earlier point about improving in the key moments, as any gameplan can be undone by the individual mistakes we've seen Hibs make. Sustained errors can be indicative of a problem with the system, but so far I'm more inclined to put these down to concentration levels and poor decision-making. Gray has changed how he wants Hibs to attack and defend, and it remains too early to make a definitive judgement. As he's said himself several times, though, these changes must start producing performances that translate into points on the board.
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