The fragile world of the football manager never ceases to surprise. Less than three weeks ago, Jack Ross was celebrating a momentous victory against Rangers in the Premier Sports Cup semi-final. Less than five months ago, he was signing a contract extension that was meant to keep him at Hibernian until 2024. “The deal gives me an element of comfort, having that backing of the club and owner,” he said at the time.
Those words, like his new deal, were not worth the paper they were written on. On Thursday morning, a statement on the club’s website confirmed that they had relieved the manager of his duties and that his assistant, John Potter, would be going with him. For Ross, the only comfort now will be the armchair from which he watches Scottish football this festive season.
He paid the price for a steep decline in the club’s fortunes, which could not be disguised by their heroics at Hampden last month. A run of just one victory in nine league games culminated in a hapless defeat at Livingston on Wednesday night, when two of Hibs’ most experienced players were sent off and visiting fans chanted for the manager to be sacked.
Emotions ran high at the Tony Macaroni Arena, but Thursday’s announcement prompted a mixed reaction among Hibs supporters. Some agreed that results had not been good enough and that a clean break was needed. Others felt that Ross had done enough in just over two years at Easter Road to deserve a shot at turning it around.
Which kind of sums up the Ross years: plenty of good, solid progress, but a nagging suspicion that his team would never have the personality to go a step further and really capture the supporters’ imagination. Last season, Hibs finished third for the first time since 2005, but fans were angry at two missed trophy opportunities. Having watched his team lose a League Cup semi-final 3-0 to St Johnstone, Ross appeared to change nothing for a Scottish Cup final against the same opponents. You know what they say about repeating mistakes and expecting something different to happen . . .
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Ross would rightly argue that his team had become regulars at Hampden, and that they were eighth in the league table when he took over, but many were disenchanted with the football. It was viewed as risk-averse, even boring, just as it had been by critics at his previous club, Sunderland.
Fans can live with that if results are positive, but when they took a turn for the worse, Ross was vulnerable. Despite a good start to the season, Hibs’ recent league form has been horrible. They have won only two Premiership games since August, both ironically against St Johnstone. One was thanks to a dubious penalty, the other courtesy of two late goals against ten men.
They say Ross was not helped by a bad summer in the transfer market, which was followed by the departure of their sporting director Graeme Mathie. And it is true that they failed to sign the players they wanted. But they also kept their biggest assets — Kevin Nisbet, Josh Doig and Ryan Porteous — at least one of whom was expected to leave.
In a wider sense, the exit of Ross is the latest of many from Easter Road in the last 18 months, a period in which the club has changed out of all recognition. Since US-based businessman Ron Gordon bought his majority stake in the summer of 2019, numerous operational staff have left, most notably Leeann Dempster, their highly-regarded chief executive.
Many of the departed were people who understood Hibs, their role in the community, as well as their part in the story of Scottish football. While poor results have badly hit attendances this season, you wonder if that trend is not also linked to what some see as an erosion of the club’s identity.
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Mathie’s departure in September exposed Ross more directly to Gordon, who has resolved to grow Hibs with a modern, revenue-driven approach. His club are one of five, most of them US-owned, who have set up an independent review of the SPFL’s branding and structure. The Hibs chairman has said already that he thinks the number of senior teams in Scotland should be reduced to 24. He sees Atletico Madrid and Seville as models for Hibs to follow.
He might be right. New, ambitious ideas may be exactly what Hibs and Scottish football need right now, which is why Gordon’s next move will be fascinating, especially with a Premier Sports Cup final against Celtic just ten days away. Alex Neil has emerged as the early favourite to take over, not least because he worked with Hibs’ current chief executive, Ben Kensell, at Norwich City. Also touted is Neil Lennon, whose previous spell at Hibs had the fire and fury that was not Ross’s style. Perhaps the most intriguing name on the bookmakers’ list is that of Raphaël Wicky, a Swiss coach who was dismissed by Chicago Fire in September.
Gordon had been at Hibs for only four months when Paul Heckingbottom was sacked in November 2019. He took a back seat when it came to identifying a successor, but if he hadn’t, the suggestion is that he would not have gone for a manager like Ross. His preference would have been for a more imaginative, perhaps foreign, candidate.
If Gordon contributes more to this selection process than he did to the last one, the outcome could be interesting.
