The good, the bad and the ugly as Hibs' held by St Mirren

A 2-2 draw away at St Mirren on Wednesday stretches the current winless run to seven matches, and stings that bit more given Nick Montgomery’s side were ahead moving into second-half stoppage time, thanks to goals from Josh Campbell and Joe Newell either side of Mark O'Hara's equaliser from the penalty spot.

It was an evening of familiarities, from encouraging attacking play and good individual performances, to a collective failure to see a close-fought victory over the line. There were 92 minutes on the clock when Lewis Jamieson struck the equaliser that left numerous Hibs players visibly distraught.

Their effort cannot be faulted, but the same issues continue to arise. Here, we look at the good, the bad, and the ugly from a frustrating night in Paisley.

The good – Attacking play, Rory Whittaker, Jair

As we did at Hampden on Saturday, there was further evidence that the attacking patterns Montgomery is drilling are beginning to pay off. A feature of Hibs’ play against Aberdeen was Elie Youan and Jair Tavares coming in off the flanks to pick up pockets of space slightly more centrally.

The idea was there at Hampden, but the execution wasn’t quite. On Wednesday, though, Youan’s positioning drew an error from St Mirren’s Richard Taylor, the centre-back diving in to a win a ball he had little chance of getting, and that allowed the winger to make a beeline for the home goal. His pass for Dylan Vente was excellent, and the Dutchman had the awareness to pick out the onrushing Newell at the back post.

It was everything Montgomery would have wanted from his forward players – fast, incisive passing, players moving off the ball, composure in the box, and supporting runs from midfield. Youan himself spurned an opportunity from a similarly flowing move in the first-half, instigated by good play on the left from Jair Tavares. He drives inside before playing a neat reverse pass for Campbell, and his low cut-back really should have been tucked away by Youan.

Having returned from his banishment to Siberia under Lee Johnson, Tavares is showing signs of renewed confidence, and he was involved in a number of good attacking moves. With injuries beginning to bite in forward areas, it looks an increasingly good decision from Montgomery to re-integrate the former Benfica youth into the squad.

The same applies to Rory Whittaker, who made his first Premiership start on the night. Still only 16, he did not look out of place against one of the most difficult teams in the division to deal with, and earned strong praise from his manager in the aftermath. There’s a composure about Whittaker which indicates a maturity beyond his years, and a solid display is borne out in the post-match statistics.

According to StatsBomb, his On Ball Value score of 0.8 (a quantitative measure of the value of a player’s in-game contribution) was second only to Vente, who provided two assists. His emergence has clearly been on merit, and has also provided an extra option in the continued absence of Chris Cadden.

The bad – Game management, again…

Managing the crucial moments from a position of strength continues to be Hibs’ key weakness. Three times in little over a week, Montgomery’s players have surrendered points late in matches after being ahead, and contrived to lose a cup semi-final in which they were the dominant side even before having an extra man on the pitch.

It is clearly becoming a difficult problem for the manager to solve.

The headline statistics above suggest a draw was a fair result, with St Mirren having a slightly higher xG than Hibs, and more shots, but that will be of little consolation at Easter Road. The issue is surely borne of multiple, combining factors, the first of which seems likely to be psychological – it surely cannot be coincidence that this keeps happening. It feels as though Hibs are continually climbing most of the way to their destination, only to commit the crime of ‘looking down’ marginally beneath the summit and remembering they have a fear of heights.

Concentration and composure have been lacking in these situations, and that inevitably leads to bad decisions being made. Fingers have been pointed at Youan for his role in St Mirren’s equaliser, giving the ball away near the halfway line and setting a platform for the home side to attack,

Much happens after he concedes possession, but the nature of it takes him out of the game and creates a significant problem, as shown below.

Jimmy Jeggo is forced to shift out wide to provide cover, and that leaves Hibs short in the centre of the pitch.

Substitute Josh Landers does not track goalscorer Jamieson’s run from deep, and it exposes Newell to a 2v1 that allows the St Mirren to break through and score at the second attempt.

I’m reticent to attach too much blame to 16-year-old old Landers, who otherwise burst a gut for the cause after coming on for Vente. This is 20/20 hindsight here, but was Martin Boyle really not fit enough to come on and do a job for five minutes, did Vente not have that same five minutes in him? It did seem risky to introduce an inexperienced player into a side which has struggled to close out games, but Montgomery, in fairness, is simply working with what he has available at the moment.

Options off the bench are limited, with both Christian Doidge and Adam Le Fondre missing out entirely in Paisley. On a number of occasions, there has been a noticeable drop-off when Hibs begin to make substantial changes, and it is clear Montgomery needs re-enforcements, from injured players returning to new additions in the January market.

The ugly – VAR, Obita’s costly error

There was an ominous feeling abound when Hibs were subject to another potentially pivotal VAR check last night. Well, that was once everyone in attendance was able to establish exactly what was being checked, and why. More on that shortly, but it’s undeniable that Jordan Obita made a rather silly decision in deciding to grab a handful of Richard Taylor’s shirt from a St Mirren corner. It probably wasn’t enough to send the centre-back tumbling to the floor, but what manager these days isn’t telling his players to go down if they feel a pull on the jersey in the penalty area? Obita should have known he was taking a monumental risk in trying to hold Taylor back, one that ultimately he did not get away with.

By the letter of the law, it is a foul, but Montgomery’s post-match assertion that consistent penalisation of such incidents would result in multiple penalties per-game was not without merit. In the same passage of play, there is a case for obstruction on David Marshall by a player making no attempt to play the ball, and for a foul on Rocky Bushiri. But the wider point is, was the initial purpose of VAR to pore over every minor incident in search of fouls the referee did not see? It’s become so all-encompassing, so constantly prominent that it’s becoming increasingly rare to head home from a match upon which it has not exerted a significant influence. Obita was daft, yes, and he paid for it, but the granular re-refereeing of matches is becoming tiring.