'Impressive win provides welcome tonic for under-pressure Monty'
I couldn’t help but feel pleased for Nick Montgomery as the full-time whistle sounded in Perth, with Hibs having trounced Craig Levein’s St Johnstone in the opening round of bottom-six fixtures.
It was a refreshing change to hear the boos ringing out around the stadium without feeling the need to join in as the Hibs players took the applause of the small away support, rather than the jeers of a furious home crowd.
It must have been a fairly bruising week for Monty. With the knives already out for the manager, Hibs did little to ease the pressure on him with the board’s open letter all but telling him he better win some games or he’d be out on his ear.
The win hopefully provided a welcome tonic for the Hibs boss. His side certainly showed they were behind him with a performance that, on another day, could have comfortably yielded another three or four goals.
When we lost to St Johnstone at Easter Road a few weeks back, Hibs racked up the shot count - as we did on Saturday - but the big difference in Perth was the quality of the chances and the relentlessness of the attacks.
Rather than passive, patient and dull build-up play, Hibs attacked with pace, aggression and purpose. St Johnstone were constantly forced on to the back foot as Hibs’ forwards terrorised their defence.
Only an inspired performance from Dimitar Mitov, who again showed his quality in goal, prevented an embarrassing scoreline for Levein, who was far less jovial in his post-match interview than he was a couple of weeks back.
I’m not sure any of the results in the bottom-six fixtures will change the minds of those supporters who are already entrenched in their opinions of whether Monty’s the right man for the job or not, but more performances like this might just sway those that are still on the fence.
Matty Fairnie can be found on the Longbangers podcast.
