STEVEN Fletcher is a major doubt for Hibernian's SPL match against Dundee United tomorrow, and may struggle to regain fitness in time to take part in Scotland's friendly with Argentina next week.
The striker is expected to be included today when George Burley announces his squad for the match at Hampden. But he picked up two separate injuries during his club's home defeat by Inverness Caledonian Thistle on Saturday, and yesterday his manager
could only say he was hopeful rather than confident that he would be able to play this midweek or next.
"Fletch is touch and go," Mixu Paatelainen said when asked if the striker would be available for the visit to Tannadice. "He got an ankle problem during the warm-up on Saturday, then got a dead leg during the match. I would like to think he is fit for (the Argentina] game, and hopefully for Wednesday too."
In recent weeks Fletcher has been playing up front alongside Derek Riordan and Colin Nish as Paatelainen has sought to make the most of the firepower at his disposal by playing 4-3-3. The adventurous formation has not found favour with some fans, who believe it is asking too much of the Hibs midfield, but the manager appears to have confidence in it.
"People look at the numbers too much, say 'It's 4-3-3, the midfield is outnumbered'. It's not necessarily the case."
If Fletcher is not passed fit for tomorrow, either Fabian Yantorno or Steve Pinau could come in as a straight replacement in an unchanged formation. Pinau came off the bench to take over from Fletcher during Saturday's 2-1 defeat, and Yantorno, who has scored five goals in ten games for the reserves, made his first start for the club in an attacking midfield role.
As Dean Shiels was also playing, that meant Hibs had only one defensive midfielder – Ian Murray – and that appeared to leave them susceptible to the counter-attack. Paatelainen, however, does not think the poor result was a consequence of the formation he fielded, and insisted he would not be rushed into kneejerk changes.
"We realise exactly what happened," he said. "The two goals were from sloppy defending and we must do better. It's always frustrating when we don't do what we want to do.
"The players listen. I can see they're trying to do the stuff out there.
"Every player must make sure they do their stuff out on the pitch. On Saturday we had too many players not performing their individual roles and we struggled.
"We did that during pre-season and we showed that on Saturday again. There was the same lapse in concentration.
"You have to make sure you do your job. It's always frustrating when we don't do the stuff that we want to do, but unfortunately that's how it goes.
"It takes a long time to improve. We go back to the training ground and do the same stuff, make sure players go on the pitch focused and aggressive.
"We are not panicking at all. We have highlighted defensive areas, but offensively we were poor as well and it was a very bad day for us."
That result at Easter Road highlighted the inconsistency in the SPL this season, with the majority of teams struggling to put a decent run of form together. Some observers may have deduced it is a mediocre league campaign, but the Finn is not so sure.
"There's tremendous quality," he insisted. "Every team has qualities and weaknesses.
"We realise every game is very difficult. The league table shows that, and it makes it very exciting."
The league table also shows that Hibs are now down in seventh place, but still only four points behind third-placed United, who have recovered from a shaky start to rise to third place behind the Old Firm.
The tenacity of the United midfield suggests that Hibs will be in for a long and trying evening if they do not rectify the errors of the weekend, but Paatelainen can take some comfort from the fact that his team were the last to beat Craig Levein's side, who have won seven and drawn two of their nine matches since.
"Dundee United have different strengths and they can cause problems," Paatelainen concluded. "But I believe we have players that, if everyone is focused and concentrating and thinking about the game all the time, we will be fine."
The full article contains 753 words and appears in The Scotsman newspaper.
