HIBS manager Mixu Paatelainen has had to endure wild rumours of his supposed resignation and the 6-0 thrashing from Barcelona in recent days, but this display against Third Division Cowdenbeath will not have cheered him less than a fortnight before the new Premier League season begins.
The Easter Road outfit at least have the prospect of two new signings – rumoured to be trialist pair Steven Thicot and Joe Keenan – to be unveiled at a press conference today as well as the fallback of having fielded a mixture of youngsters and fring
e players against the Blue Brazil.
Paatelainen will also be heartened by his first competitive sighting of Uruguayan trialist Fabian Yantorno, the former Gretna striker, who was given the last half-hour of this friendly as he battles back after nearly seven months out with a knee injury. A second trialist, understood to be former Millwall and Leeds United midfielder Curtis Weston, also had 90 minutes to earn a deal but had little chance to impress.
However, a miserable evening against the club which gave him his managerial break was capped when Paatelainen was sent to the stand by referee Brian Colvin. Pressure appears to be already mounting on the Easter Road manager before the campaign begins. The full-time whistle was met with a chorus of boos from the travelling fans, who are growing uneasy at a lack of new recruits and victories during an unhappy pre-season.
Paatelainen conceded his own frustration had played its part in his dismissal. He said: "Tonight it looked like every decision the referee and the linesman made went against us. I was disappointed. Quite clearly it was a penalty in the second half when the boy handled in the box.
"On the other hand, the linesman put his flag up for a foul when we had a player in the box to knock it into the empty net and he didn't play advantage. It is disappointing, games and matches are won and lost because of these decisions. The first goal wasn't a penalty at all, it was outside the box and it wasn't a foul at all.
"I was ordered to the stand because I was very unhappy we didn't get a penalty and I was very unhappy the referee didn't allow us to play advantage, and for me these are very easy decisions for the referee and linesman to make."
Hibs did their best to ensure their hosts threatened in the early stages, with midfielder Ross Chisholm crashing a header off his own bar in the 10th minute in trying to deal with a Kenny Adamson cross.
With the Easter Road side toiling, they went behind in controversial fashion. Paul McQuade and Hibs skipper Rob Jones tussled as they chased a ball at the edge of the box but, on the advice of his assistant, Colvin pointed to the spot, and Fairbairn despatched the penalty high into David Grof's net.
Hibs enjoyed a brief flurry of meaningful activity around the Cowdenbeath goal for the next ten minutes but, with the slight Ross Campbell ploughing a lone furrow up front, could not carve out any clear-cut chances. In the 32nd minute, Filipe Morais did threaten with a volley from a loose ball, but home keeper David Hay touched away his effort. Hibs were failing to find any rhythm and former Easter Road midfielder Jay Shields was proving to be a particularly robust opponent.
In the 55th minute, Dene Droudge mis-directed his cut-back to the edge of the area but it fell perfectly for Marek Tomana, who fired high past Grof from 14 yards out.
Paatelainen then had to be spoken to by referee Colvin after a series of baffling decisions from the officials and, following an apparent handball by Droudge, he was sent to the stand by the official to cap a difficult night for the Hibs manager, who claimed some of the Easter Road players had been guilty of "showboating".
"It worries me because there is no room for slack attitudes and application," he said. "I want every player to have the right attitude and that wasn't the case.
"Players have to remember that as well as you can play into the side in these matches you can also play your way out of it."
Cowdenbeath: Hay (Morris 83); Droudge, M'Bu, Hodge (Cenerazzo 70), Adamson; McGregor, Shields (McKay 83); Tomana (McDonald 86), Robertson (Ramsay 46), Fairbairn (Ferguson 57); McQuade (Lynch 86).
Hibs: Grof; McCormack, Canning, Jones, Stevenson; Morais, Cropley (Trialist, Yantorno 62), Chisholm (Welsh 70), Rankin, Trialist; Campbell. Subs not used: Flynn, Welsh, Booth, Currie, Byrne.
The full article contains 779 words and appears in The Scotsman newspaper.
