Jack Ross believes his Hibs side are going through their stickiest patch as Scotland’s third force - but reckons they can still stop the rut against Celtic.
The Easter Road club have now lost three on the bounce to Rangers, Dundee United and Aberdeen and now face the Hoops on Wednesday night.
Ross knows his team showed character to finish third last season and has backed them to deliver again and get their stuttering season back on the rails.
The Hibs boss said: “I think human nature dictates that when you lose games, your belief takes a dent slightly.
“Clearly when you win games, it rises. You see it all the time when clubs go on streaks.
“We’ve got a group that for pretty much a year and a half now has done things pretty well.
“This is probably the stickiest period they’ve had during that.
“It will be a test of character for them, for us. But it’s time to have that unity about them and also to remember why they’ve had a lot of positive results.
“We know that we’re in a difficult period at the moment but we can turn that around very quickly.
“We’ve got an opportunity to do that on Wednesday night.
“Everybody has different ways of looking at it. It’s a challenge against one of the top teams in the league and a team that are in very good form at the moment.
“It is a game that we’d expect to bring out the best in my players.”
Ross was critical of his players after they were thrashed at home by Dundee United but he didn’t think there was too much between his team and Aberdeen in the Granite City.
He added: “I don’t think there was a huge amount in the game between the teams. Aberdeen possibly shaded the first half and obviously scored in that period.
"In the second half, we dominated a lot of the ball and territory but don’t create enough in that period and don’t test Joe Lewis enough.
“It was the type of game that you felt that there would be very little in it and it could be one goal that settled it and that’s obviously the case.
“Irrespective of that [Aberdeen’s defensive changes] we’d have still felt that [frustration]. We made the change at half-time, taking that into account, we felt we had an opportunity to exploit that.”
Ross also claimed Darren McGregor felt aggrieved to be shown a second yellow card in stoppage time.
He claimed: “I haven’t seen the second caution. The first one is a yellow card, I’ve no arguments about that.
“I haven’t seen the second one. I’ve asked the referee and he told me it was for ‘adopting an aggressive attitude’.
“I don’t know what that means exactly.
"I haven’t spoken to Darren about it. I think he’s slightly frustrated about it and that maybe tells its own story.”
