Hibernian 0 Dundee Utd 1

January 2nd 2002
Scottish Premier League
Attendance:

Scorers:
Dundee Utd: Paterson.

This is a copy of a report of the game as it appeared in the Scotsman on Thursday 3rd January 2002

Late Paterson strike defeats edgy Hibs

LAST year is only three days away; last season but a few months. As far as some Hibs supporters are concerned, though, the last time they had a decent team must seem worryingly far back in the past.

Since this campaign started, Hibs have patently lacked the panache with which they played when Russell Latapy kept the midfield ticking over. They have acquired useful players, such as Alen Orman and Ulises de la Cruz, but as a team they do not have the same cutting edge.

Further proof of that, if any were needed, came yesterday when they controlled virtually all the game against a very ordinary Dundee United side, but ended up losing to a late sucker punch from Jim Paterson.

At least that goal brought a soporific encounter to life. A minute after it, United were down to ten men when Jamie Fullarton was dismissed for a second bookable offence. Then, in the sort of goalmouth scramble which had led to Hibs’ equaliser in the Edinburgh derby, David Zitelli got the ball into the net - only to be ruled offside.

Those three incidents were virtually the only ones worth reporting from the game. United did have one other effort on target, but Charlie Miller’s attempt to lob Nick Colgan was so lame it should have been confined to a wheelchair.

Hibs, on the other hand, created several openings out of the lion’s share of possession which they enjoyed, but they are extremely edgy in front of goal these days. Anything they did direct towards United goalkeeper Paul Gallacher was dealt with calmly.

The result took United, a club supposedly in crisis on and off the pitch, to eighth place in the SPL. Hibs are tenth, four points ahead of Motherwell, having played a match more than the second bottom side.

Let’s put that another way for any of their fans who are having trouble taking a sober look at the world at the moment. If Motherwell win their game in hand, Hibs will be a point above the bottom two.

United manager Alex Smith spoke after the game of how badly his side had needed the three points, but Franck Sauzee and Hibs need them even more badly right now. Since the Frenchman took over as manager his team have got just a single point, for the simple reason that they have scored hardly any goals.

"I’m very disappointed, of course," Sauzee said. "They had maybe one chance of scoring and they scored. I think we’ve scored two in the last ten or 11 games.

"In football you must score. It’s not just a question of the strikers. We have got to be angry in front of goals."

Or did he say ’ungry? Either word amounts to the same thing: at the moment Hibs are playing toothlessly and dispassionately. In the latter stages yesterday, as the doubts set in and United’s self-belief grew, the home team kept up the same mechanical pattern of play, patently unable to adopt Plan B.

How they could do with the intelligence of Sauzee and the irrepressible verve of Latapy. In fact, how they could do with anyone able to do something a little out of the ordinary.

De la Cruz, for instance, saw a lot of the ball without doing anything with it. Ulrik Laursen, announced as man of the match before the goal was scored, enjoyed a lot of space out on the opposite flank to the Ecuadorian, but his crosses were scarcely more troubling for the United defence.

Sauzee needs to think of something, and quickly. The current mini-crisis at Easter Road was not of his making - other than in the sense that his appointment as manager led to his removal from the playing staff - but he is the one shouldered with the responsibility of staging a recovery.

He is a more sophisticated tactician than his predecessor, Alex McLeish, but is less well versed in how to deal with the psyche of the Scottish footballer. By demanding more anger - or was it ’unger? - from his players, Sauzee has shown an awareness of the importance of passion as an ingredient of a successful team in this country, but what he has yet to show is an awareness of how to stir up such an emotion in his own side.

Until he does, a nagging question will remain: is Sauzee too nice to succeed? One hopes not, because it would effectively mean that, to get anywhere as a coach in Scottish football, you have to be nasty, brutish, gruff and monosyllabic - all characteristics which Sauzee so pleasingly lacks.

But he needs to do something quickly, before the sense of crisis deepens and the players start to fall out. It will not take much in the way of results: given how tightly packed the league table is, a solitary win could be enough to lift the gloom, albeit temporarily.

Certainly, that was the effect that this result seemed to have on United. They have played feebly at times, and, the ever-entertaining Miller excepted, do not have much to offer when it comes to creativity.

But they do have a fighting spirit which first helped them to stay in this game, and then allowed them to win it. they also have anger and ’unger, and that may prove just enough to take them to safety.

Hibernian: Colgan, Smith, Murray, Laursen, De la Cruz, Brebner, Jack, O’Neil, Arpinon (Zitelli 74), O’Connor, McManus (Hurtado 63). Subs not used: Caig, Townsley, Riordan.

Dundee Utd: Gallacher, Wright, Lauchlan, Hannah, Aljofree, Easton, Miller (Paterson 71), Fullarton, McCunnie, Hamilton, Lilley (McIntyre 78). Subs not used: Combe, Thompson, Cocozza.

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