Painful endgame for Gray as stale Hibs slump
A club hero, David Gray ends his time as Hibs head coach not to the sound of euphoria from fans, but to the sound of a support collectively exhaling in relief, writes Tom English.
It was the strangest kind of farewell; more sadness than satisfaction, more 'thanks for the memories' than 'never darken our door again'.
After a dozen years as a player, a goalscoring and Scottish Cup-winning icon, a coach, an interim manager and, for the last two-and-a-bit seasons, the first team manager, David Gray exited Hibernian on Wednesday evening.
He left, not to the sound of euphoria from the fans, but to the sound of a support collectively exhaling in relief. Given what he did on an immortal day at Hampden in 2016, no Hibs supporter wanted to boo the man they called Sir David Gray, nobody wanted to call for his head. It was a painful endgame, for everybody.
Hibs have sacked many managers in recent seasons, but this was no Nick Montgomery, no Lee Johnson, no Shaun Maloney. Gray was altogether different. Driven, passionate, honest as the day is long, brutally so when talking about how things were going wrong, which he had been doing too much of lately.
Gray's big picture tells us this: he was the first manager at Easter Road to qualify for European football in consecutive seasons since the great Eddie Turnbull in the early 1970s. The kind of slump that Hibs are in right now is entirely in keeping with what's happened at Hibs over the last half century.
He's the only Hibs manager to win at Ibrox in three consecutive seasons. He won at Celtic Park last season, too.
The flipside is also clear. Six successive home defeats in the league equals a grim club record dating back to 1920. Two shots at European Conference League play-offs - and the finance that would have come had they completed the task - were wasted in the most self-harming way.
Six points from six games, ninth in the table, an awful loss to lowly Kilmarnock on Tuesday and a sense of drift did for him. Making the League Cup semi-final, against Hearts, wasn't enough to save him.
Gray sacked by Hibs after six league games
The style of football wasn't easy on the eye, the lack of energy and entertainment was a problem that was only growing. Hibs just look a bit stale, a bit rudderless. Occasionally they can spark into life and show what they are capable of, but those moments have been too fleeting.
Jens Berthel Askou brought zest and enjoyment to Fir Park last season and Alfred Johansson, his successor, is trying to build on that. They both had bad nights on Tuesday but Johansson and Wouter Vrancken at Hearts are attempting to create something compelling and their fans are on board with them all the way.
Maybe Hibs fans want something similar, something shinier, something more exotic. There is the feeling that they have a decent enough squad of players but also a belief that these players should be delivering more than they are.
If there was a table for under-performance, Hibs would be challenging at the top.
Some of those same players must shoulder a chunk of the blame for Gray's demise, but they are a largely protected species, even if a number of them, weak-willed and unreliable, have no right to be protected. You can't sack a dressing room in one day, though. A manager and his assistants? Now that's different.
Gray goes but others must look in the mirror; the players, a sporting director in Malky Mackay, a chairman in Ian Gordon, a chief executive in Dan Barnett who could scarcely be more low-key if he lived in a bunker under Easter Road.
Gordon, presumably, will lead the search for another manager. It would be interesting to do a poll on the level of trust fans have in him and others to land the right man.
Gray took them to third in the league in his first season and fifth last season. There is an argument to be made that on the back of those bottom lines he deserved more time, but he hasn't got it.
He had a tumultuous beginning as Hibs manager; one league win in his first 14 games. In November he was bottom of the league. Hearts were second bottom. More than once Gray seemed to be in trouble only to pull out a series of wins that made him safe.
That first season was a prime example. From bottom of the table, he got them to third by the end. It was a fine achievement. Fifth last season was reasonable, but it must have felt nightmarish to Hibs fans as Hearts roared on and threatened to win the league.
The rise of Hearts adds significant pressure on whoever's managing Hibs. It's just the way it is.
Throughout his time, Hibs had a ruinous capacity to concede late goals that checked momentum and made the search for the holy grail of consistency all the harder.
