DAVID Gray, the Hibernian captain, last night insisted there was nothing irregular about the final team meeting with Neil Lennon which preceded him being axed by the club.

It is understood that some players believed the Northern Irishman had gone too far with his criticism of them, a problem which has been brewing for months, and when this was relayed to chief executive Leeann Dempster she took action on Friday and suspended the manager.

He is expected to be released from his contract this week.

The relationship between Lennon and the dressing room had deteriorated, although there are player unhappy with what has happened, but they managed to put that aside yesterday to record a 3-1 win at St Mirren, with academy chief Eddie May in charge.

Gray said that the players had to take the blame for the bad run of results and that he felt Lennon’s relationship with the squad hadn’t changed since he first walked in the door.

“It was just a normal debrief of the game,” said Gray when asked about the meeting. “We knew it was not the right result (at Motherwell). Like I say, attention then purely turned towards St Mirren. It was about us bouncing back as players.

“You are always going to question the character of the boys when you lose a game. The lads were hurting after Wednesday night. We knew the challenge facing us – St Mirren was going to be a tough game because they are down at the bottom of league fighting for their lives and it was live on the telly too.”

Gray added: “It came out on Sky, that’s the first time I was made aware of it. Then the next again day there was a meeting about the football department saying listen we have a job to do, what goes on goes on. It’s above our head. We just see what happens.

“You are always shocked in that situation. I don’t think there is any other way to put it. The run of results has not been good. The players take full responsibility for that. There is no other way of looking at it. we were looking at ourselves thinking things need to be better.

“That’s how it is in football. You need to react. We knew how important today was. Thankfully we managed to put that right.”

Lennon has made several public barbs towards his players in recent months, with Florian Kamberi in particular coming in for heavy criticism, but Gray was adamant that not much had changed over since the former Celtic manager was appointed in the summer of 2016.

“I think it (relationship between manager and squad) was the same as when he first came in,” said Gray. “The last two and a half years since the manager joined the club we have been moving forward all the time, it has been really good.

“But results have not been fantastic recently. In terms of the relationship between the players and the manager it has always been the same. That’s just the way it was. The run of results has not been good. Everyone knows there was a meeting, it was nothing to do with anything out of the ordinary. It is just the way the game goes. We knew and take responsibility for our own performances.

“Obviously the situation is what it is. We get paid to pay football. We were only concentrating on the game today.

“We knew how important it was to get three points after the run we’ve been on, and that’s what all our focus was on. Thankfully we have been able to do that. Now we turn our attention to Aberdeen.”