A Hibs Midfielder Thought They Dominated Against Celtic. What Game Was He In?

I laughed last night – I genuinely laughed – when I read the Hibs midfielder Jake Doyle Hayes’ take on the game on Monday. He thought that he and his team-mates “dominated.”

It makes me wonder what game he was actually in, because it wasn’t the one I watched.

I found his comments highly amusing.

Hibs fans should have been gravely concerned by them, because if anyone in their squad believes that they were unlucky or robbed of a result or deserved more than they got then it doesn’t portend well for their season.

We outplayed them, especially in the first half.

That they had one shot on target – the one in the very first couple of minutes – does not suggest dominance of any kind, particularly when you consider our own shots at goal and on target and the way the whole game was virtually played in their half.

Yes, they had a lot of the ball in the second half – marginally more than we did – but this does not make them dominant.

It means we took our foot off the gas.

It means that we were so confident in our own dominance that we didn’t even view it as particularly risky to let them have possession for a while. They certainly didn’t do anything with it.

I mean, they might get excited about that but I wouldn’t in their shoes.

Celtic were the better team on the night by a country mile.

The score line flattered Hibs; they were lucky to get out of the match without being on the end of a much more serious beating.

I would be amazed if any in their ranks actually believed they were the dominant team; this may, therefore, be little more than a bit of bravado to build confidence.

But the media is lapping it up, of course, with some of the hacks revising their verdicts on the game; the same folk, of course, who want to suggest that the penalty was harsh on Hibs, which it certainly was not.

This is what we have come to expect though.