Prepare yourself for a real-life, genuine, top of the table clash this Saturday at Palmerston!
Not only is it 1st v 2nd but we are the team sitting at the top of the league with our visitors Hibs, just a point behind, in second place.
The Opposition
After the heroics of the cup final win last season many Hibs fans would have been disappointed to see Alan Stubbs leave to be manager of, English Championship club, Rotherham. For many, the pain will have been eased somewhat by the appointment of Neil Lennon. A high profile figure with a fantastic record, in Scotland, as manager of Celtic.
Lennon has inherited a strong squad and has managed to keep the core of it intact, despite interest from down south in, top scorer, Jason Cummings. While the likes of Liam Henderson and Anthony Stokes both returned to their parent club, they've been replaced by players with strong pedigrees – Grant Holt and Andrew Shinnie both have recent experience in the English Championship and, striker, Brian Graham scored almost a goal every two games for Raith at this level before his move to the Scottish Premiership. Between the posts, Mark Oxley, moved to Southend in the summer and has been replaced by, Isreali international, Ofir Marciano – who will be the first Israeli to play a competitive league match at Palmerston, if he features on Saturday.
Hibs, of course, have made a strong start to the season, winning every league game up until last Saturday when a defeat to Ayr allowed us to overtake them at the top.
This will be Hibs third season in the Championship, after relegation in 2014 and the Edinburgh club will be hoping to return to the top of the table and the top flight as soon as possible. Of course, we'll be doing all we can to stop them!
With the release of Danny Carmichael in the summer, the only Queens connection is Alex Harris, who spent last season with us on loan.
The Game
This Ladbrokes Championship match kicks off at 3pm on Saturday 24th September at Palmerston. Live updates will be available
on the website and on twitter and Facebook. We will also publish pictures through the day on our new
Instagram Channel
The Fans
For home fans, the normal ticket procedure applies for the game and tickets will be available for all areas of the ground on match day from the usual ticket offices. Tickets can also be purchased in advance from the Midsteeple and, from Thursday onwards, the Club Shop.
Full ticket details and pricing, for home and away fans, can be found on our
Tickets and Prices page.
Away fans will be in the Rosefield Salvage Stand and the Terregles Street terrace. Tickets are on sale in advance from Hibernian FC and there will be terrace tickets available to buy on the day at the ground.
Directions on how to get to Palmerston, including parking information, can be found on our
Getting Here page.
The Manager
“We didn’t start particularly well first half on Tuesday night against Rangers. We worked extremely hard to stop them playing and when we got it we perhaps had a tired mind and gave the ball away. I thought we started the second half brightly and created a couple of half-chances but a minute later they score a second and gave us a mountain to climb. I talk about small margins in football matches, perhaps small margins has went for us at times but it didn’t at Ibrox.
“We’re going to take bumps on the road, and that was one of them against a talented Rangers team. Mark Warburton commented after the game that’s the best they’ve played so far this season. We were perhaps little bit off our game and they were on top of theirs. We could have shut up shop at 2-0 but in a cup game we went for it, but unfortunately it created more space for them to counter and they scored a couple of good goals.
“I thought the fans were great on Tuesday night, even at 5-0 down they kept us going, it’s important as it shows we still have their backing.
“Sometimes you learn more from disappointments, we can’t change what happened on Tuesday night. We can look at what we can do better, that starts with me. But overall this season we’re really pleased, I always say don’t get carried away because that’s football. We’ll dust ourselves down and we’ll go again for a massive game on Saturday.
“It’s shaped up to be a fantastic encounter against Neil Lennon’s Hibernian side. Hibs are a strong side with the size of the club and their budget, they’re the favourites to win the league and will be expected to go up.
“But it’s a game we’re looking forward to, we’ve started the season well and we’re hoping to continue that. Our home form has been terrific and we approach every game, home or away, in an attacking manner. It’s been a real team effort from the players and we are top of the league by merit.
“We’ve played extremely well in the league so far and have shown great determination and character. Our last home game we couldn’t break down a well-organised Raith defender in the first-half but second half we upped our energy and tempo and scored three great goals, which is really pleasing.”
The Team
The full squad is available for selection with no new injury concerns.
The Officials
Referee : Steven McLean
Assistant 1 : Graham McNeillie
Assistant 2 : Kevin McElhinney
The Stats
The overall league head to head stats between the two clubs at Palmerston are neck and neck with 11 wins each and 4 draws. Of course, the majority of these matches were over 50 years ago!
The more recent league form at Palmerston is equally as even with 2 wins a piece, since Hibs relegation. Our record at Easter Road, in the same time, is almost as tight with 1 win and 1 draw to the home sides 2 wins.
In the cups, there have been very few meetings between the two clubs in recent years – just 4 since 2003. Again, theres nothing between them with 2 wins each, including of course, the most recent game at Easter Road when we won 3-1 in August, and a certain Mr Dobbie scored his first goal on returning to the club. After scoring another 8 times since, Stephen is now joint 20th on the all time scorer list for the club with 64 goals.
PS – apologies for the lack of previews for the last two games, this was due to one of the web team being ill.