David Gray cannot keep ‘picking the same players that make the same mistakes’

Hibernian head coach David Gray warned he could not keep picking the same players if the mistakes that have dogged their early season continue.

Hibs fell to a 3-1 defeat at Celtic Park in the Premier Sports Cup to make it three defeats in a row on the back of a group stage which included a 1-0 loss against Kelty Hearts.

Two of those losses came against the champions but the loss of eight goals in the hat-trick of defeats has included some basic errors.

Centre-back Marvin Ekpiteta endured a particularly torrid afternoon in Glasgow, failing to stop Daizen Maeda netting an early double before a loose pass back resulted in Nicolas Kuhn charging down goalkeeper Josef Bursik’s attempted pass.

Hibs have signed five players in the past fortnight and they remain on the lookout for players to kickstart their campaign.

“There is going to be more competition for places now,” Gray said.

“The squad is going to get stronger as the days and weeks go on.

“Everyone that’s playing just now, has the level been good enough? No, we are not at the level. So I can’t keep on picking the same players that make the same mistakes all the time.

“It has been a tough start but we keep making it tougher for ourselves by making mistakes and not doing the things we are asking them to.

“We have two massive games now before the international break where we have to start putting points on the board as quickly as possible.”

Gray felt both the execution and decision-making was lacking when Hibs conceded their third goal after taking a short goal kick.

“It’s something we work on all the time,” the former Hibs skipper said.

“If you look at a couple of situations just before that, Marv put a couple of balls into the channel, we went short to then go long, which we got a little bit of success from.

“So it’s the decision-making at the time. We know Celtic are going to press aggressively, they always do, they are very good at it.

“We need to be brave enough to play under that pressure and if you can break that press you get an opportunity at the other side.

“It’s just a poor backpass at the wrong time. It’s into the wrong position, it’s the wrong side of him, and then the mistake after that is we don’t do enough to stop the goal. That’s the frustrating part, that it’s so avoidable.”