Hibs Struggle After Gray Exit as Aberdeen's Robinson Faces Questions
It has been a bruising week at Easter Road. Nick Montgomery’s replacement David Gray, popular in the stands and respected in the dressing room, was told after just six league games that he would not be the man to lead Hibernian forward. The decision landed hard on a squad already short on confidence.
Into that emotional fog stepped assistant Adam Potter, back for a second spell on the coaching staff and suddenly tasked with patching up morale. He spoke about turning the blow into fuel, about leaning on the positives to drag the mood upwards.
For 45 minutes, none of that landed.
Aside from the bright, busy work of Callum Wright, Hibs played like a side still reeling. They were tentative on the ball, careless with possession and repeatedly invited Aberdeen to spring forward. The visitors, happy to counter at pace, snapped up those openings and looked the more assured, more coherent team.
Hibs trudged off at the break to a murmur of frustration. They came back out looking like a different club.
The second half crackled. Hibs went more direct, attacked with greater intensity and stopped shrinking from tackles. They pressed higher, ran harder and finally started asking questions of an Aberdeen defence that had looked largely untroubled.
The pressure told. The equaliser, when it came, felt earned rather than fortunate, the product of that extra aggression and urgency that had been missing before the interval.
Yet as the international break arrives, the same doubts hang in the air over Leith.
Why can this Hibs side rarely stitch together a full 90 minutes of authority? Why do they stumble through so many first halves before waking up? And, bluntly, is there enough quality in this squad to match the club’s ambitions?
Those are the problems waiting on the desk of the next manager. With club football pausing for three weeks, attention now turns away from the touchline and into the boardroom as Hibs search for their next permanent appointment.
While Hibs wrestle with identity, Aberdeen look like a team that has found one.
Earlier in the campaign, as results stuttered in a 4-3-3, Stephen Robinson made a pointed remark: “Shape is for pundits.” It sounded defiant, even dismissive, at a time when the system clearly wasn’t delivering.
He has since quietly gone back to what he knows best. Three centre-backs. Two strikers. The framework that underpinned his success at St Mirren.
The change has been obvious. Aberdeen now look far more secure without the ball, more coordinated in their press and far sharper when they break, using the pace at the top end of the pitch to turn defence into attack in a few strides.
Two players, in particular, have shifted the mood. At the back, Mats Knoester has emerged as the standout defender at the club, reading danger, winning duels and bringing a calm authority to the back line. In midfield, Afeez Aremu covers huge swathes of ground, snaps into challenges and then keeps things simple, moving the ball on quickly to launch attacks.
With that platform, Aberdeen had the game where they wanted it. And then they let it slip.
Kevin Nisbet, in the form of his season, produced a superb touch, spin and finish to give Aberdeen the lead. It was his third consecutive game on the scoresheet, underlining his importance and raising a different concern: who else will carry the goal burden over the long haul?
That question will nag away, but not as much as the one that will irritate Robinson most from this match. A needless challenge from Milne, at a stage when Aberdeen looked set to close it out, opened the door for Hibs and cost his side two points they had worked hard to earn.
For all Hibs’ second-half surge, Aberdeen will feel they handed them a lifeline.
Even so, context matters. After a grim start to the season, Robinson can look at the structure, the improved pressing and the growing influence of key players like Knoester, Aremu and Nisbet and see something solid taking shape.
The foundations are finally going down in the north-east. The question now is whether Hibs can find a new leader quickly enough to build anything comparable of their own.
