Every word from Nick Montgomery Hibs Q&A after defeat at Celtic

On the goals conceded

“I said to the boys at half-time, both the goals we gave away were really avoidable. We also had the two best chances of the first half, two one-on-ones and two big saves from Joe Hart. On another day, maybe we score both and go in at 2-2. But I’m really disappointed with the manner of the goals we conceded.   The first goal, it’s a corner that has landed in the six-yard box. We lose our players and it’s a bit fortunate, it sort of ricochets in. You don’t want to come away to Celtic and give away a real sloppy goal – but we did.  The second goal is totally avoidable, just a cross from a deep area with two on two in the box. He just escapes his marker.  They haven’t carved us open – and I don’t think they really carved us open at all in the first half. But we had two fantastic chances. On another day, one or both go in. 

On the penalty award

“We started the second half quite brightly and, for me, it’s a soft penalty. I know the crowd shout for it and he goes to the VAR, watches it in slow motion, takes a bit of time. We’ve probably had five or six of those incidents in my time at the club – and we’ve never had a penalty. It never goes to VAR, they never go to look at it on the screen.  That was disappointing because, if we had avoided that and got a goal back, we have a chance. But 3-0 down at Celtic to two soft goals and a penalty, not taking our chances, it’s an uphill task. 

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“I’m proud of the effort and the way we played, because you have to be brave and we were brave. There were some really good passages of play that, on another day, we score another couple of goals.  We probably didn’t deserve anything from the game because of the manner of the goals we gave away in the first half. But the boys carried in, we scored a goal, Elie Youan has hit the post as well.  So I’m proud of the boys’ effort, disappointed in the result, disappointed in the first two goals we conceded. The boys are disappointed as well, so I don’t need to tell them. 

On whether the crowd is a factor in decisions

“Look, it’s one of them. The player who actually went down didn’t even think it was a penalty. He didn’t think he got touched. He said that to the boys afterwards. Again, if we are going to go to VAR and look at every incident there are going to be a lot more free-kicks, a lot more yellow cards, a lot more penalties. Because when you slow everything down, there is always some sort of element where you can maybe change a decision. But he’s right at that moment, he’s not going to get the ball, it hasn’t affected where the ball is going to go, he is already falling down and Lewis Stevenson comes down the side of him not through the back of him. If he had gone through the back of him, no problem, give a penalty.

READ MORE: Hibs boss bemoans avoidable goals and soft penalty v Celtic

"But, yeah, when you are talking about a crowd like this in big places when they all shout . . . Maybe I will get the Hibs fans to shout every time somebody goes down. Maybe we will get a penalty because we haven’t had one yet. But that wasn’t the reason we lost the game, I thought the ref was actually good tonight. That incident? Deliberating over whether there was a touch? That was disappointing. But I thought at that point it did kill our momentum of getting into the game a little bit because the boys were starting to play some good stuff. We knew we could cause them some problems and we did. But big Joe Hart is a good keeper and he stood strong, especially in that first half. We go away with no points, that doesn’t change. But we will definitely take some positives from the game.

On Celtic

“You can’t come away to a quality team like Celtic and give goals away. You have to make them work for them. And they didn’t work for those two goals. They’re a quality team, the best team in the competition. We’ll dust ourselves down and get ready for a busy schedule in the next couple of weeks, hopefully get a couple of players back for this weekend. 

On keeping heads up

"We won’t lose momentum. The boys are confident, they’re really together. Even giving the goals away, we continued to play, continued to create problems for them.  It doesn’t affect confidence. Nobody expected us to come here and get anything.   We knew if we came here and didn’t give sloppy goals away, we could cause them problems.  The momentum is still with us, we know we can go on good runs. All we focus on now is the next game this weekend.

On Vente and Obita

"Dylan Vente took a knock and we didn’t want to risk him tonight, Jordan Obita will be back for the weekend. We didn’t want to risk him because quite frankly we can’t afford to risk players when we have four games coming up in a real short space of time. We will regroup now and get ready and prepare for the next game on Saturday.”