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Chasing down Motherwell is now the priority after historic victory in Glasgow
Hibs head coach David Gray showered his players with praise for chalking up another milestone victory under his watch after they won at Celtic Park for the first time in 16 years.
Teenage substitute Kai Andrews fired home the winner for Hibs on 88 minutes as they record a rare triumph over Celtic in the east end of Glasgow. They had taken a lead midway through the first half via Felix Passlack’s header, only to be pegged back on the stroke of half time by Benjamin Nygren’s effort. They also benefitted from a red card to Auston Trusty on 74 minutes after he hit out at midfielder Jamie McGrath.
Gray has challenged his players throughout his near 18-month reign to re-write the history books and this win means that Hibs have won at Celtic Park, Ibrox and Tynecastle during his tenure. He admitted that he had dangled the carrot of emerging victorious at Parkhead for the first time since 2010 to his players and lauded them for seizing the opportunity.
The Hibs players take the acclaim of their fans after winning 2-1 at Celtic Park. | SNS Group“It’s been a big part of the last 18 months,” said Gray. “Every time we’ve come here that’s been the challenge for 18 months. You have to truly believe you can do it. It took the complete performance. We had to defend and soak up pressure from Celtic to do that. I was disappointed with the goal we conceded because that was avoidable but apart from that my goalie didn’t have many big saves. It’s a difficult place to come.”
Gray has been pleased with his team’s reaction after losing a narrow Edinburgh derby 1-0 to Hearts at the start of the month. They defeated St Mirren 2-0 last weekend and the head coach now set the team’s sights on reeling in Motherwell, who are five points ahead in fourth place.
“Back to back wins is good, especially here after St Mirren,” continued Gray. “It’s not been been done for a very long time against a team that people said had a poor result in Europe but they were against a top European team [in Stuttgart]. Domestically they’d had something like nine wins and one draw before this and they’re right bang in a title race for a reason.
“Massive credit has to the boys because they deserved it. That puts us five behind Motherwell. They have a game in hand but we still have to play them twice and the teams around us and we’ve showed again if we go toe-to-toe and get complete performance we’re capable of beating anyone. We have to be 100 per cent at it. We have a lot of young players coming through and we will get better as the season ends.”
Gray believed referee Matthew MacDermid and his VAR Grant Irvine got two big decisions correct in sending off on Trusty and also deciding not to award a penalty when Celtic claimed Liam Scales had been hauled to the ground by Jack Iredale.
“I think the red, you can’t do that,” reasoned O’Neill. “You can’t lift your hands with that aggression. That’s violent conduct and a clear and obvious red. Jamie has a issue with his shoulder and almost put his out so it shows how hard he’s hit him.
“The penalty, I’ve seen it from one angle. There was a coming together. He goes down. If it gets given on the field it probably doesn’t get overturned. It went with us on the day. They’d probably gone against us previously.”