Lee Johnson insists Hibs competed well with Rangers but his squad need to evolve in to next season.
The Englishman watched his side suffer their first defeat of the split after James Tavernier caught out David Marshall at the front post with a free kick before second half goals from Ianis Hagi and Todd Cantwell sealed the deal at Easter Road. It means Hibs will have to be flawless against champions Celtic and in an Edinburgh derby finale next weekend to finish the season strong.
He believes that despite Leith potentially seeing comings and goings in the summer that the basis is there with his squad to evolve in to next season and become more ruthless against the biggest sides.
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He told Sky Sports: "I thought in the first half we were well in the game, I thought we were solid in terms of that unit, that mid-block, and we countered quite well but didn’t have the end product required.
“I’m sure there would have been some half decent chances to show on Sky from our point of view, probably grouped together but not at key times in the game where we anted them. The first goal was massive in that, but there were elements of our performance in the first half that were okay.
"Technically, they are a better side than us, which is something you would expect. They wriggled out of trouble, overloaded central areas, and we worked really hard to try and deal with that. Then, when we did break, we needed the quality to be able to execute the final action. Josh Campbell’s half-chance probably sums that up, and I thought Elie Youan was dangerous on the counter, although potentially not having his best game in terms of end product.
“We’re on a part of our journey where we’re stretching against teams like this, and we have to develop, grow and come out to develop technically good players. We want to compete more and more. We’ve competed today, but probably not for long enough in terms of the 96 minutes that there we’re after.
“That’s what I said to the boys, naturally there is an evolution of the squad. The ones that are here giving everything every day - which they are - but they also have to have technical quality, stay here, and we will recruit and develop around that to make the squad better.”
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