Hibs aim to flip the narrative with statement wins over Celtic and Hearts after four straight league draws

David Gray has challenged stuttering Hibernian to view back-to-back trips to the William Hill Premiership’s top two teams as an opportunity to spin the narrative back in their favour.

The Hibees finished third after overcoming a dismal start to last season, but supporters have been left frustrated by the fact they have drawn each of their last four William Hill Premiership games while losing to struggling Rangers in the Premier Sports Cup.

Although respectful of the challenges they face in their next two matches, Gray believes this Saturday’s trip to champions Celtic and the visit to city rivals Hearts a week later are the type of fixtures which offer his side the chance to ignite their campaign.

“We are a brilliant example (last season) of demonstrating how things can change in a positive way very quickly, but it can go the other way and I’ve always guarded against that,” the manager said on Friday.

“People will say we’ve not got as many points as we should have and we all agree internally that’s the case, but I think we’ll probably play worse in games and pick up more points.

“It’s a very long season. We still need to remember we’re undefeated in the league this season, although it could be a lot better. There’s certainly no negativity within the training ground and on the training pitch every single day and that’s the most important thing for me.

“The noise will be the noise, it’s always there and that comes with the expectation of the club, it comes with the narrative that gets spun every now and again and how quickly it can change.

“And if you go and recreate history tomorrow and be the first Hibs team in 15 years to go and win at Celtic Park, how quickly that changes. And then if you don’t get the result, we’ve got a derby to look forward to after that as well, and that changes things.

“So every game, it’s so important in terms of how quickly things can change.”

Gray reported that captain Joe Newell is “coming along well” in his quest to return to action after being sidelined since late December with a groin issue.

“He was on the grass again today, he’s pretty much done a full week’s training without the contact side to it, so he’s not really been back in the group as such this week,” said the manager.

“Because we’ve had games (in midweek), it’s not really been conducive for him, he needs to be still doing his conditioning work to make sure he’s not dropping off at this stage.

“All being well, if he gets through this weekend after a couple of hard days, he should join the group next week and then it will be a case of building him up within that sort of controlled chaos amongst the players.”