Is Sunshine really back on Leith? - A look at the Championship so far - Part 4 - Hibernian

First of all, apologies for the lack of posts in the last couple of days. University work combined with a sore throat has stopped me from writing anything for the blog.

After two unsuccessful attempts the Leith club are hoping this season will be the season that Hibs return to the big time. The summer saw big changes at Easter Road, Alan Stubbs left to go and manage Rotherham, his replacement Neil Lennon has signed six players including former Inverness midfielder Andrew Shinnie on loan from Birmingham City.

The Hibs squad, supplemented buy the addition of Shinnie and co. is without doubt the strongest in the League. The young talent that Hibs possess is of almost as high a quality of the mid 2000s squad that included Brown, Riordan and Fletcher. After 8 goals in as many matches, striker Jason Cummings is a wanted man by several teams both sides of Hadrian's Wall. He was subject to several £1m+ bids in the summer transfer window. Whilst, midfielder John McGinn is rapidly becoming a regular name in the Scotland squad and is thought of being Scott Brown's replacement in the national team.


Season Ticket sales have been up by over 40% on last season and Easter Road has been seeing crowds of on average of over 15,000 this season. That is the highest crowds seen at Easter Road since the construction of the new East Stand in 2010.



After five consecutive victories to start the season, Hibs have since hit a sticky patch, losing at home to Ayr and drawing with Queen of the South and Dundee United. Albeit the latter two will most likely be the Hibees challengers for the title. Lying on 17 points, Hibs find themselves only a point behind Queens at the top of the table.

However, the same problems still show at Hibs. Specifically, the inability to finish off a match whilst in front or in control.

The live television match against Dundee United was a prime example of this, United were barely in the match, with the occasionally exception of a counter attack. Despite Hibs dominating the match for 65 minutes against a side that are very poor at defending, it was 1-0. All it took was one corner for United to equalise through William Edjengule and all the dominance Hibs had was in vain.

Like the last few seasons, Hibs need to be more clinical to finish teams off when in front or in control of a match if they want to return to the Premiership.

Hibs' next five fixtures:

• St Mirren (H) - Sat 8th Oct - Irn Bru Cup
• Raith Rovers (A) - Sat 15th Oct - Championship
• Dunfermline Athletic (A) - Sat 22nd Oct - Championship
• St Mirren (H) - Sat 29th Oct - Championship
• Ayr United (A) - Sat 5th Nov - Championship 

To summarise, Hibs are the biggest team in the league and have the best players in the division. However, their inability to be win matches after leading is what may be their downfall, yet again. Not many sides in this division have the quality to either be defensively strong enough or clinical enough to punish Hibs. My prediction for the Hibees is that they will go onto the win the division by a margin of five to ten points.