‘Teams here just wait for a mistake’ says Scottish Premiership new boy
Hibs will continue to pursue domination of opponents by passing them off the park, according to fullback Jordan Obita. And the Englishman, who says most Scottish Premiership teams seem content to prey on opposition mistakes, believes Nick Montgomery’s men have the quality to keep building from the back – despite gifting St Johnstone the only goal of the game at McDiarmid Park on Saturday.
Former Reading and Wycome left back Obita, a summer signing for Lee Johnson, said there was no chance of Dylan Levitt’s goal kick howler in Perth forcing new gaffer Nick Montgomery to instruct his players to start shelling the ball up the park, declaring: “No, we’re not that sort of team. The gaffer doesn’t want us to play that way. We’re more of a possession-based team.
“If teams then do press us, then we do look for the ball in behind. But, no, we’re not going to be a team who just play direct.
“It’s that time of the year when some games aren’t going to be pretty. The pitches aren’t going to be great. But we still believe in ourselves, believe we can still try to play good football and try to win playing the way the gaffer wants us to play.
“So we still believe we can play the same way and get results. But, yeah, that was probably one of the worst games we’ve had under the new gaffer.
“We try to be 100 per cent on it every single week. We got it wrong against St Johnstone – but we have an opportunity to get it right against Ross County this weekend.
“As the gaffer has said often enough, every team in this league is good, they all have their strengths. Especially away from home, it’s always difficult. At home, with our fans, that helps us a lot, gives us a boost. So it’s going to be tough at County. But I believe we can put it right.”
Despite his avowed admiration for the toughness of the opposition, Obita clearly isn’t entirely won over by the predominant style of Scotland’s elite division, saying: “This is my first time in the league. And it seems like most teams here just wait for that one mistake, one opportunity to get the goal – and then they defend for their lives.
“It makes it very difficult for teams who want to try to play football, to then score, equalise, try to get ahead. It does make it difficult.
“But I feel that, in this team here, we’ve got enough quality to do it. We just need to put it right.
“It’s very, very disappointing (losing to St Johnstone) because we didn’t really put them on the back foot. We didn’t really create chances. And we’ve only got ourselves to blame for that.
“We know we’ve still got work to do when it comes to breaking teams down. Against St Johnstone, there was so much space out wide – but we probably didn’t use it well enough.
“Yeah, we tried to pin their fullbacks back into their own area. But, even when we did that, we probably just tried to force it a little bit.
“The quality wasn’t there. So we go back to the training pitch, keep working, keep trying to learn and improve – and then put it right against Ross County next weekend.
“Look, the conditions weren’t great at St Johnstone. But there are two teams on the same pitch, playing the same game. It felt like they were especially just waiting for a mistake to happen. Unfortunately, it happened – and they got the goal.”
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