Ange Again Refuses To Rule Out Kyogo For The Final … Or Forrest Either.

Good news from the press conference today; the manager still thinks Kyogo has a chance of making the final. Interestingly, he has refused to rule Forrest out of the running either, which is way beyond good news and better than I would have hoped for.

When asked – as was inevitable – about Kyogo he said that it was still too soon to offer a definitive answer. But he said the same about Forrest too, and the boost it would give us if even one of these guys was fit would be enormous.

I think Kyogo will play. I’ve listened to the manager on this for the past week every time he’s been asked and he’s playing it cagey because he doesn’t want to confirm it in part in case something goes wrong and in part to keep Hibs sweating.

It’s not like Ange to withhold information from us; if there was no chance he would just tell us that.

If both players are fit then the manager suddenly has options again, and it would be very interesting to see what he did in that case. I think it might be a stretch to have both players fit enough to start; we might need to settle for one of them off the bench.

But just to see the names in the match squad … that would give everyone an enormous lift before a ball was even kicked. The news would reverberate round Hampden.

The mood would be almost euphoric, the atmosphere electric.

That would certainly rub off on the players.

Although this doesn’t really change our understanding of things that much, I think that we’re still discussing Kyogo’s chances with just two days to go tells us that the boy has a real chance and if he’s got a real chance I think he’s fit enough to take part in some manner.

Certainly, the management can see nothing to indicate that he can’t play … that, on its own, strongly suggests that we’ll see him in the line-up, and yes, I think he’ll start.