David Gray keen on giving current Hibernian squad chance to prove worth

David Gray is intent on ensuring Hibernian embark on any January transfer activity from a position of relative strength.

The Hibees climbed off the bottom of the Premiership last weekend with a 3-0 win at Motherwell and the manager is optimistic they can surge towards the top six over the coming weeks.

Gray was asked about Hibs’ plans for the January window on Friday, but the manager insisted he is more concerned with seeing the current group of players back up the faith he has in them by pulling away from the danger zone.

“The work never stops in that department,” he said of recruitment. “You’re always trying to look to see if you can strengthen on ins and outs.

“We’ve got a lot of players that will attract interest as well. It’s probably about being proactive as much as you can. We’ve always got plans in place for what we’d like to achieve. At the same time, you can only do what we can do.

“If it’s possible and it’s something that we feel is right for the football club, we’d like to do it. At the same time, I was heavily backed in the summer and I’ve got a really good squad of players here.

“My full focus between now and the window opens is on trying to get to January in the best position we can be and trying to turn around our league position. Then the hard work that’s been going on continuously will be looked at come January.”

Gray welcomed the appointment of Darwan Stewart as Hibs’ new director of recruitment this week.

“I’ve met him just once briefly,” he said of the former Bournemouth employee.

“He’s obviously very experienced and comes with a vast knowledge and experience in that area. I think it’s a great addition for the football club.”

Gray acknowledges Hibs face a formidable trip to league leaders Celtic on Saturday but he is confident they can build some momentum amid a heavy run of fixtures over the festive period.

“We did truly believe it was going to turn, but that’s not us completely turned the corner,” Gray said, reflecting on a morale-boosting return of four points from the last two games. “We know where we are. It doesn’t stop us working on the things we were working on.

“I’ve said for a number of weeks now how quickly the narrative can change. We’ve obviously got a real difficult test this weekend, but a couple of wins and you push yourself right back up there. We’ve not won enough games to this point, but we need to be looking at how quickly we can turn that around.

“Celtic are the team that are expected to go and win this weekend, so they have to deal with that. We just have to look at ourselves and build on what we’ve done last weekend, take the confidence from that and go and believe we can get a result. We need every player to be their absolute maximum.”