NEIL Lennon has been in this movie before and he is growing visibly weary of it. For the second successive week the Hibernian head coach saw his players create, and spurn, numerous decent opportunities.
Jason Cummings was the primary culprit and Lennon did not mince his words in a stinging critique of the striker.
For the second successive week, Hibs were reduced to 10 men in the second half. On this occasion Lewis Stevenson was the unlikely offender, receiving his marching orders for just the second time in his decade as a first-team player at Easter Road.
On the plus side for Lennon’s team, they did not capitulate in the manner they did in last weekend’s 2-1 home loss to Ayr United.
Queen of the South, for their part, competed admirably, and any notion that they are merely keeping top place in the SPFL Championship table warm for Lennon’s title favourites was dispelled as they went toe-to-toe with the Easter Road side in atrocious conditions in Dumfries.
“My attacking players were poor and this needs to be addressed,” said a frustrated Lennon. “Jason missed two gilt-edged chances – a header from five yards, and one from a corner where the ball dropped to him two yards from goal. All he had to do was make decent contact and we would have been a goal up.
“We should be doing better in the final third. These chances all seem to fall to Jason. He is a good goalscorer but, if he isn’t scoring goals, then he isn’t bringing much to the team at the minute. He needs to do better.
“We are dominating games and creating chances and the vast majority come to Jason. So, we can also ask the others ‘where are you? Why is everything falling to Jason?’.”
Somewhat predictably, it was former Hibs forward Dobbie who was the first to threaten, producing a marvellous pass to send Dale Hilson scampering through on goal, but Ofir Marciano made a fine save with his legs.
Cummings then nodded David Gray’s delivery straight into the arms of Lee Robinson from point-blank range. Hibs went closest to breaking the deadlock as the break approached, with Gray heading wide and Brian Graham fizzing a low shot narrowly off target.
Cummings’ second golden opportunity came after the interval when a John McGinn corner kick fell kindly just six yards from goal, but the Scotland under-21 player couldn’t sort out his feet quickly enough to get a shot away.
Any momentum Hibs had was quelled when Stevenson was shown a second yellow card for hauling down Hilson, having been cautioned before the interval for crashing through Jamie Hamill.
Lennon said: “Once again, we were down to 10 men for a long period of the game and I’m not convinced it was a red card. Lewis didn’t push the boy [Hilson], he just put his hand out, and he was going down any way.”
Queens pushed for a winner, but their best chance, a close-range effort from Hilson was superbly parried clear by Marciano.
Home manager Gavin Skelton said: “I’m really pleased with that result. With the week we have had, conceding five against Rangers, to show that attitude and those fitness levels was absolutely fantastic.”
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here