Ben Williams sat down with all the weariness of a man who has been carrying the weight of a particularly heavy silence around with him all week.
It has been an awkward burden, not least as the Hibernian goalkeeper has been reminded of it every time he has bumped into Pat Fenlon at training. He will hope to ease the tension with his manager by impressing against Kilmarnock tomorrow.
There has been a somewhat uncomfortable atmosphere about the club given the capitulation Hibs suffered last week as they threw away a 2-0 lead at home to Motherwell, and one which has been felt acutely by Williams. Conceding three times inside 25 mad minutes will always bring scrutiny on a goalkeeper and, while Fenlon's ire went unspoken after the game, it was articulated clearly during a withering silence; one which was likely intensified by a run of just one win in five matches in the Clydesdale Bank Premier League.
It is the sort of form which would have been hard to comprehend during Hibs' brisk start to the campaign, one which took them to the summit of the table. It is also quite unthinkable at Williams' first club: Manchester United.
The goalkeeper never made a competitive appearance but he got close enough to experience one of the drawbacks of being in the limelight at Old Trafford. He was just 20 when he was named among the substitutes during a match at Chelsea, a contest in which United would trail 2-1 at half-time following an unsightly gaffe by Roy Carroll. The reaction from Sir Alex Ferguson doesn't bear thinking about and has been hard to forget for Williams, even though he was an innocent bystander.
He was spared a similar response from Fenlon last week but the silent treatment has proven to be just as effective. "It's been drilled into me coming through at Old Trafford that if you make a mistake you get told about it, with the 'hairdryer' treatment or whatever," said Williams. "I never had the 'hairdryer' directed at me but I saw it directed elsewhere and the first time you see it, it takes you back a bit. You can rant and rave or you can sit in silence – and that can have just as much effect. Pat Fenlon, after the game last week, could have ranted and raved at all of us . . . but we were not worth his words and sometimes silence works."
At times yesterday it felt as though Kenny Shiels might have been trying that out for himself. The Kilmarnock manager has had his knuckles rapped so often this season for comments he has made it has left him feeling tender, a three-match touchline ban pulling him from the dug out tomorrow and also making the Northern Irishman appear withdrawn in front of the media.
It is easy to sympathise with Shiels – his honesty has not been regarded as the best policy by Vincent Lunny, the SFA compliance officer – and there was a sense yesterday that he has simply grown tired of the reaction to his remarks, as well as the trips to Hampden which have followed of late. "I don't want to talk about bans or anything like that, I don't want to talk about anything that is immoral or unethical. I just want to talk about the football," he said.
There will be plenty of opportunity for that over the festive period, with Hibs the opening episode of a four-match series running until January 2. Kilmarnock have operated on the fringes of the top six of late but could find themselves back amid the European places by the start of the new year if they can find consistency somewhere among the Christmas decorations. It is a test comparable to that facing Hibs, although Shiels suggested that it feels far greater to his side.
"It's a big challenge for us," said the Kilmarnock manager, who will be without the suspended Liam Kelly tomorrow. "There are four heavyweights outside of Celtic and Hibs are one of them. We are certainly boxing above our weight."
It is a bantam Hibs striker who stands the best chance of giving the Ayrshire side a bloody nose tomorrow, though, even if Leigh Griffiths has failed to score in his last five outings. That has tarnished a goal-per-game record he had fostered throughout the start of the season, but Michael Nelson is reluctant to take his eye off him all the same. "He likes to flit around and drift into little pockets of space, he's hard to pick up," said the Kilmarnock defender. "It's tough."
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 hereComments are closed on this article