Fabian Yantorno remains confident he can become a regular starter with Hibernian despite his lack of first-team action. Only one of Yantorno's seven appearances for Hibs has been from the start and today's derby against Hearts is unlikely to see him promoted.
Fabian Yantorno remains confident he can become a regular starter with Hibernian despite his lack of first-team action. Only one of Yantorno's seven appearances for Hibs has been from the start and today's derby against Hearts is unlikely to see him promoted.
The attacking midfielder faces more competition for a place at Tynecastle after the former Rangers striker, Jonatan Johansson, completed his move from Malmo on New Year's Day.
But Yantorno insists he is relishing the challenge of displacing players such as Derek Riordan and Colin Nish. The 26-year-old joined Hibs in the summer after a miserable start to 2008, when a knee injury and then the demise of employers Gretna had left him with an uncertain future.
The Uruguayan said: "It's not frustrating, it's beautiful. It's great to have five, six players with that quality and class in every training session. Even better if you can play on the pitch with those players. So it's a very good situation.
"You have to prove you can play with those players. If you do, you just enjoy every game and every training session."
He added: "I feel really good at the moment. I think I'm near the player I used to be now, so I just want to keep going and improving, and going in the way towards the player I used to be. "If that happens, I think I can be a regular here."
"I'm Yantorno sampled the Edinburgh derby for 10 minutes during the 1-1 draw at Easter Road in October and he is eager to repeat the experience at Tynecastle.
"It's going to be a wonderful game to play in," he said. "Every player wants to play those type of games. It's going to be a great atmosphere and a good game.
"You can see in the training sessions that all the players are desperate to play, especially after the game on Saturday. If we want to keep fighting for third place, we must win."
Hibs suffered a blow yesterday when experienced centre-half Rob Jones was ruled out with a hamstring injury.
