SQUEEZING into the top six of the Ladbrokes Premiership table may feel like a hollow achievement but it will carry extra significance in Edinburgh this year.
Hibernian’s victory over Motherwell on Saturday, courtesy of first-half goals from Mark McNulty, from the penalty spot, and a David Gray header should ensure the Easter Road side are among the leading half-dozen when the league splits next month and slot a fourth derby of the season against Hearts into the diaries.
The gap between the two clubs now stands at just two points, a remarkable turnaround given that as recently as November Hearts were top of the table and early title contenders while Hibs were struggling down in eighth.
The Easter Road side, though, have found greater consistency under Paul Heckingbottom and have yet to lose a league match under their new manager. Saturday’s win means they can now comfortably look up the table rather than worrying about what is happening below them.
“You chase the team above you and it just happens to be Hearts,” said Hibs midfielder Marvin Bartley. “They lost to Hamilton so we are closing the gap on them. There are enough games for us to catch them and go beyond them so that’s our next aim.
“I thought they had won the league earlier in the season given the amount of messages on Twitter I was getting from their fans. So it's quite surprising that we are only two points behind them.
“It shows you can’t really get too excited until all the games are gone or you are mathematically too far ahead of another team.
“But we don’t want to get too far ahead of ourselves and then next minute we have slipped up, finished seventh and it’s like, ‘What happened?’ We go to Livingston after the international break. It’s another big game but we are in a healthy position at the moment.”
Teams that change managers mid-season can often take time to settle but there has been little sign of that disruption at Easter Road since Heckingbottom replaced Neil Lennon.
“If you have the wrong sort of people in there, they down tools if the manager changes,” added Bartley. “That’s not happened. Everybody has taken on board what he has said. You have to get used to managers coming and going. It’s just part of the game.”
The defeat will likely end Motherwell’s chances of pipping Hibs for the top six but for a team that flirted with relegation trouble earlier in the season it has still been a positive campaign.
“It’s a frustrating one because we knew the points difference between the two teams at the beginning of the game and it’s one of those ones that we didn’t want to lose,” said defender Tom Aldred.
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