Hibs: Marink Reedijk has 'sick feeling in stomach' - are his team in relegation fight?

Two games in, no points gathered and a chorus of boos greeting him at full-time at Easter Road... The honeymoon is well and truly over for Marink Reedijk.

Defeat in the new Hibs manager's opening two fixtures means the men from Leith have slumped to the bottom of the Scottish Premiership table.

It's left the Dutchman with what he described as "a strange feeling" in his stomach. So that begs the question: is his gut telling him his new side is now in a fight to avoid the drop?

With Halloween still a fortnight away, it may seem premature to drop the dreaded 'relegation' word into the Hibs conversation. But the fact the green half of Edinburgh is now looking up at the rest of the league a quarter of the way into the season is nonetheless cause for concern.

"I hate it," Reedijk told BBC Scotland after Saturday's 2-1 home defeat by Falkirk when asked about his side's place in the division. "It's something I don't want.

"I also think that based on today, we don't deserve it. But it's a fact and it's up to us to continue what we do, unpack the things we need to really work on, make sure these little mistakes don't happen and that we create momentum in our matches."

Hibs bottom after Falkirk mete out seventh home league defeat in row

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The 35-year-old took former club Beveren into the Belgian top flight on the back of an undefeated season last term. But his new side have won none of their last six in the league.

It's now over six months since Hibs celebrated a Premiership win in front of their own fans. Supporter patience, usually as rare as hens' teeth in football anyway, is in especially short supply around Easter Road these days.

"We need to work hard, stick to the things we do, develop the things we do, make sure that we make fewer and fewer mistakes and make sure that we take our chances," Reedijk said.

"I leave very disappointed with a strange feeling in my stomach because I think the guys worked their guts out. I think we deserved more, however we didn't get more. I'm therefore positive but with a sick feeling in my stomach."

Were there positive signs against Falkirk?

That sick feeling may take a while to dislodge.

Six home defeats from the club's last seven Premiership matches isn't on Reedijk. He's only been in the building a matter of weeks.

The task facing him, however, is culture change while winning. Tricky enough at the best of times but especially so when two of your next three games are against champions Celtic and arch-rivals Hearts in a national cup semi-final at Hampden.

Reedijk wants his side to dominate games. That happened, to a large extent, against Falkirk, with Hibs enjoying 70% possession.

It's what they do with the ball though that is their undoing at present. A failure to convert chances allied to individual errors. They had 17 shots to Falkirk's 10. Tellingly, the visitors had more on target: five compared to the hosts' three.

Reedijk can be encouraged by some of the other metrics: more entries into the final third (68 to 48); more touches in the opposition box (29 to 16); a higher tally of expected goals (1.35 to 0.76).

The only stat that matters to the external world however is a scoreline that leaves Hibs flailing at the wrong end of the table having taken a single point from the last available 18.

Under Reedijk's predecessor David Gray, Hibs enjoyed back-to-back top-six finishes for the first time since the late 2000s and were just minutes away from group-stage European football until a late collapse at home to Gent.

It was put to the former Hearts forward Ryan Stevenson that, right now, Hibs look a mess. "Yes, they do," he said on BBC Radio Scotland's Sportsound.

"I don't know David Gray but I like David Gray. I know people say it came to a natural end but sometimes the grass is not always greener.

"They were better in the second half but did Falkirk ever really look like they were going to concede a goal? I don't think so.

"It's worrying, the fact that they're bottom of the league. It's still tight down there. It was a massive three points from Kilmarnock that's allowed them to go above Hibs. They need results fast."

Former Hibs midfielder Michael Stewart agrees but accepts finding those improved performances is not easy when the manager is still assessing his available options.

"There are a lot of questions that remain unanswered," he said on Sportsound.

"It feels a little bit like that at this moment where they're searching for something. Searching for a system. Searching for personnel. Searching for partnerships to evolve and bring them results.

"The new manager's in the door, he's got three massive games coming up, right on the back of two defeats."

Reedijk is adamant he sees positive signs and that there was improvement on the first performance under his watch at Dundee United last Saturday. That, too, ended in defeat.

The manager now has the dual task of keeping players and supporters alike onside while dragging the team away from the relegation zone. Hearts at Hampden also looms large on his horizon the day after Halloween.

The timescale to turn the Hibs tanker around could look a whole lot less scary if there's a national cup final to look forward to.

Michael: Hibs squad since we finished third has got progressively worse each transfer window as players leave and replacements are not made. Malky Mackay 100% needs to leave.

Colin: It's small margins that's costing us points. Cut out the individual errors and be more clinical and the manager will turn things around. He also needs the characters and leaders in the dressing room to step up.

Col: Garbage from start to finish, relegation fodder. Hibs have bigger problems than the players who can be sold/fired into space. The Gordons need to sell Hibs to someone who knows something about running a football club and move on.

Ringo: I said last week the players ain't good enough and again today they proved me right. These players got David Gray sacked. I'm 60 and I'd try harder than most of those players.

David: Malky Mackay needs to be the next one out of Easter Road. Ultimately he's the one to sign off on these signings as sporting director and the recruitment has been horrendous. These players don't have it in them and we are at serious risk of relegation come the end of the season.

Steven: This is one of the worst Hibs squads I've seen in a long time. They will get the new manager sacked by the end of the month.