WILL Fish has defended the attacking approach that Hibernian took in their cinch Premiership game against Rangers at Ibrox on Saturday and predicted they will flourish playing that way this season.
Easter Road manager Nick Montgomery deployed Adam Le Fondre and Dylan Vente up front in a 4-4-2 formation in Govan and the capital club ended up on the receiving end of a 4-0 defeat.
However, centre half Fish still has complete faith in the system that Montgomery, who had won two and drawn three of the five matches he had taken charge of before the weekend, has favoured since arriving in Leith last month.
"We're going to have to look back at the game this week and see where we went wrong,” he said. “But we've got a big few weeks coming up so we can't dwell on it. We need to use it as some motivation and get back on the training pitch and put things right.
"It's quite an experienced team and everyone had played at Celtic Park or Ibrox before. We stuck to the gameplan that the manager wanted and at the end of the day we played short.
"We want to play football and play out from the back. If you make mistakes against Rangers, you are going to get punished. That happened, we weren't good enough defensively. But I do think we genuinely stuck to the gamelan and tried to play out.
"We were six games unbeaten before that. Everyone is buying into the manager's new style of play. I think in a few more weeks, we will be even better. There are top players at Rangers, especially up front. If you make mistakes as a defender playing at Ibrox then you are going to get punished.
Hibs play Celtic and Ross County at home in the Premiership in their next two matches and then take on Aberdeen in the Viaplay Cup semi-final at Hampden and Fish has urged his team mates to put the Rangers reverse behind them quickly.
"We all knew Ibrox would have a good atmosphere,” he said. “When any new manager comes in the players are going to give a reaction to show why they should be playing. It was a tough day, but as I said, we can't dwell on it.
"The manager has told us not to get too down about it. We've got a big few weeks coming up. Just use it as a learning experience for going forward.”
Meanwhile, Fish has expressed his condolences with the family of Sir Bobby Charlton after the Manchester United and England legend passed away at the age of 86.
“He is a legend at Manchester United,” he said. “It will affect a lot of people. I just want to send my best wishes to everyone who is connected to him.
“Growing up through the academy, the history was always shown to you. You'd always learn about it and we took trips to Munich for the Busby Babes. It's obviously really sad for football and I'm sure everyone at United will be feeling sad.”
