In the Scottish Premiership, any win on the road is not to be taken lightly.
Hibs didn't exactly sparkle in Saturday's 1-0 victory over bottom side Livingston, but they proved their mettle in grinding out three points in quite brutal conditions at one of the country's trickiest venues. Nick Montgomery afterwards commended his players' fortitude in simply getting the job done in West Lothian, and while it's not a 90 minutes that will live long in the memory, but the result was an important one.
A win lifted Hibs into fourth in the Premiership at the expense of rivals Hearts, who fell to a stoppage time sucker punch up at Aberdeen. Montgomery's team have now claimed maximum points in four of their last five, and have two more very winnable - albeit away from home - fixtures before the Edinburgh derby on December 27.
Montgomery was pleased to see different sides to his team on Saturday, with a fine Martin Boyle goal in the first-half being backed up with a gritty display in the second. Here, we look back over the key stats and moments.
The xG race chart above demonstrates how teams created opportunities, and helps provide an overview of how the 90 minutes panned out. It aligns closely with how it felt watching from the stands: Livingston started well, Hibs grew into the game, but as time wore on faded, and the hosts finished strongly in search of an equaliser than never came.
Based on xG, StatsBomb gives Hibs just a nine per cent chance of winning this match, which suggests either they were fortunate, or simply ruthless, depending on your interpretation. There was, perhaps, a bit of both.
Once Hibs sussed out Livingston's shape, they enjoyed a productive spell that culminated in Boyle's goal. The heatmap below demonstrates just how heavily Livingston targeted Hibs' right flank in an attempt to make life difficult for Rory Whittaker, in for the injured Lewis Miller.
It was a real test for the teenager, and credit to him that he did not back down from it. It is probably the most physical challenge he has faced since breaking into the first-team, and one that will be just as valuable as any other. Livingston launched a succession of long passes down Whittaker's side in the early stages, and looked to play off second balls.
They were also content to allow David Marshall to pass to either Will Fish or Paul Hanlon, with Kurtis Guthrie then attempting to show Fish out wide where Whittaker was the obvious option. The ball going to the 16-year-old was the trigger for Livingston's press, a tactic made doubly clear by David Martindale bellowing at poor James Penrice at ear-splitting volume to get in Whittaker's face. Livi had some joy with this in the early stages, as demonstrated below, with the youngster receiving a pass from Marshall and being a little too eager to get the ball up the line when Penrice had already cut off the angle.
Such instances made it difficult for Hibs to play out in the early stages, and much of the first 15 minutes, roughly, was played in the visitors' half. But as time wore on, they adapted. Whittaker showed he's not going to be flustered by one mistake, and keeps his cool the next time the ball arrives to him in the same area. This time, he keeps it simple and passes back to Fish, who takes up a clever position that allows him to use the oncoming Guthrie's momentum against him, stepping forward to bypass the striker before spraying a pass to Hanlon on the opposite side.
Hanlon receives the pass and has acres of space to step into, with Jordan Obita having already pushed high to help pin Livingston back. The home side are forced to resettle into their shape and Hibs have moved themselves about 30-40 yards up the pitch, from where they can now build an attack in the Livingston half. It's around this time Hibs start to render the Livingston press ineffective by simply recycling the ball to draw them on before looking a quick switch to the opposite side.
It's a tactic which results in Boyle's goal. This time, Fish is allowed to step forward, and he passes to Joe Newell, who has pulled out wide, perhaps with the express intention of looking to switch the play. He and Dylan Levitt had found very little space to get on the ball in central areas, and drifting into a full-back area gives Livingston something else to think about.
With Hibs having overloaded the right side, Newell checks back in-field and swings a brilliant pass over to Elie Youan in space on the inside left. This opens up Livingston to a situation they'd rather avoid, with Youan having space to run at defenders, which he duly does.
As Youan rushes inside, committing players, Boyle makes a subtle movement to peel off the two Livingston centre-backs. Youan overruns the ball slightly, but the ricochet off Ayo Obileye lands at the feet of Boyle, and he cleverly uses the defender to squeeze a shot into the far corner.
For a brief period, Hibs threatened to build on their lead, and on a few occasions found space in behind Livingston's backline, who were stepping slightly higher than the visitors might have expected. It allowed Hibs to try and go over a defensive block more than we've seen, as opposed to through or around it. Jair broke in behind in a few instances, and Youan made some clever out-to-in runs that weren't found with the right pass.
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As the game wore on, Hibs faded as an attacking force and Livingston, aided by a change of shape, grew increasingly ambitious in search of an equaliser. The contrast between the first and second periods is evident in Hibs' passing networks below, showing how often players received and made passes, their average positions when doing so, and the number of times players combined.
A larger circle around a player's name indicates greater involvement on the ball, and it's immediately clear that Hibs were playing out via their centre-backs much less in the second period, with the midfield and attack also far less influential. Montgomery described his side as being in the 'bunker' for much of the second-half, with Hanlon, Fish, and Marshall singled out for praises. The centre-back pairing made 34 clearances between them as Livingston went direct.
It didn't make for pretty viewing in the second period, as the conditions worsened and the quality of the game dropped off, but it was a hugely necessary defensive effort from Hibs to see another tight affair over the line.
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