Hibs transfer window video

The Scotsman

Mark Atkinson talks you through what to expect from Hibs in the January transfer window

Transcript

00:00Hello, it's Mark Atkinson here, Sports Editor of the Scotsman, and I'm going to talk to

00:06you today about what we can expect from Hibs in the January transfer window. David Gray's

00:13men are currently sitting seventh in the William Hill premiership, a very poor start to the

00:19season, you would say, left them bottom of the table, and going into December, both the

00:24head coach and the hierarchy under extreme pressure. But our excellent run of form has

00:28moved them 10 points clear of bottom spot, and they go into the new year looking at top

00:33six football rather than over their shoulder. I don't think the recent resurgence really

00:38changes too much at East Road in terms of recruitment, there's still two priority areas

00:42they want to address. The first one is fairly obvious as the goalkeeper. They signed two

00:46goalkeepers in the summer, Joseph Bersik and Jordan Smith. Now Bersik started the season

00:51as the number one. However, the on loan goalkeeper from Club Rouge has really failed to impress

00:56making too many individual errors and he lost his place in mid November to Smith, a perennial

01:03backup in English football who spent most of his career at Nottingham Forest. Now, while

01:07Smith has actually played pretty well the last couple of weeks and helped Hibs recover

01:11their position, I would expect David Gray and the recruitment team headed up by new

01:17recruitment chief Garvin Stewart to bring in at least one new goalkeeper to probably

01:24be the number one for the rest of the season. A few names have already emerged. There's

01:29Cameron Dawson, a 29-year-old who's currently at Rotherham, has spent many years in the

01:34championship with Sheffield Wednesday, quite a tall and imposing keeper. Other name is

01:38Xander Clarke, the Hearts backup goalkeeper, of course, was Hearts' number one this time

01:43last year and won his first Scotland caps, but since then has fallen behind Craig Gordon

01:48at Pecking order. He's out of contract in the summer and there have been suggestions

01:53that Hibs are looking to speak to the former St Johnson stopper. Will Dennis is another

01:57name that you may have heard linked with Hibs. He's Bournemouth's third choice keeper, spent

02:02last season on loan at Kilmarnock. The problem that Hibs have with Bournemouth, who are of

02:07course one of their partner clubs in the Black Knights table, is that the Cherries want three

02:12senior goalkeepers in their Premier League campaign and one of their keepers, Kepa Arrizabalaga,

02:17is on loan from Chelsea and he can't play against Chelsea when they come up against

02:21them. So Bournemouth will probably have to sign another goalkeeper to let Dennis go.

02:25But nevertheless, goalkeeper is certainly a priority area, as is a striker. Hibs do

02:31have a number of forward options. Martin Boyle, Elie Juhan, Mikko Kukarovic, Dwight Gale,

02:36to name a few. Also, Ciaran Bowie returning from injury later on in January. However,

02:42they do still want to bolster that part of the team and I would expect at least one forward

02:46player to come in during January. I don't expect Hibs to go crazy. There's not a ton

02:51of money to spend, nor is there a real demand to overhaul the squad in January, especially

02:58given where they are. The arrival of Stewart, though, does mean that they'll probably look

03:02at a slightly different profile of player. And I think you could also say there'll be

03:07a number of players leaving the club in January as well. Luke Amos, the midfielder, formerly

03:12of QPR, came out on social media saying that he's looking for a move away from Leicester

03:15Road, so I can imagine he may well depart. There's guys like Noam Kerr, Jake Doyle-Hayes,

03:20even potentially Dylan Leavitt and Nathan Moriah-Welch and Harry McCurdy, who don't

03:25feature much from the first team, and they could leave. A lot of those contracts expire

03:30at the end of the season. I'd say that Hibs' major overhaul will come in the summer when

03:35they have a number, I mean it's almost a dozen players, that will be leaving the club, freeing

03:41up lots of wages. So I suspect you'll see them be far more active then. But with Hibs

03:47in a strong position right now, I'm sure Graeme will want to try and add some more to his

03:51squad as they try and achieve their baseline expectation of finishing in the top six of

03:56the league and going deep in the Scottish Cup.

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