Hibs hope to appoint successor to departed Neil Lennon within 10 days, reveals Eddie May as caretaker reflects on challenging seven days for the club

BY ALAN TEMPLE – @CCP_Sport

EDDIE MAY has revealed Hibernian are hopeful of appointing a successor to Neil Lennon within the next 10 days after admitting the past week ‘wasn’t easy’ at the capital club.

Interim head coach May, who endured a brief, unhappy spell in charge of Falkirk during the 2009/10 campaign, is proving a safe pair of hands after guiding the Hibees to a 3-1 win over St Mirren last Sunday, however he has no desire to take the role on a permanent basis.

The likes of Alan Stubbs, Tommy Wright, John Hughes and Steve Clarke have all been linked with the vacancy and the 51-year-old fully expects the club to act swiftly to install a new boss and allow him to return to his position as academy coaching manager.

“We are looking at the next ten days,” he explained. “Hopefully, we can get the new person on board sooner rather than later for everybody over the second half of the season.

“The club will hopefully be successful and hopefully Neil and Garry [Parker] will go on and be successful somewhere else.

“Until someone tells us we have to step aside we’ll just keep on doing what we’re doing.”

May concedes that it was vital that Lennon and his assistant Garry Parker parted ways with Hibs relatively amicably this week, albeit the club’s statement – confirming he was neither sacked nor resigned – did add to the sense of uncertainty around what precipitated the decision.

“I tried to cut myself off but what we had was a really high profile manager who was very successful in Scotland and is known throughout Europe, so that wasn’t easy,” said May.

“I’m glad to see things have been resolved in terms of Neil, Garry and the club all being happy and they can all move on in different directions.

“It was important it didn’t drag on. The club will now look to bring in a new manager and we can focus on taking the game against Aberdeen.

“Hibs are trying to get into the top six, we’re a few points behind. But if we can go and get some positive results we won’t be far away.”

With that goal in mind, Hibs belied their managerless status to complete a hat-trick of deadline day signings, with Gael Bigirimana, Darnell Johnson and Marc McNulty all arriving with less than two hours to go before the window slammed shut.

“We needed cover for centre-back after Ryan [Porteous] had his op and Efe [Ambrose] left so we’re happy to have got Darnell in and he’ll play a major part,” added May.

“Gael has come in from Motherwell, where he maybe didn’t fit in with their style of play. But any time he played against Hibs he did very, very well.

“And Marc hasn’t been getting a game at Reading and I know we have been trying to chase him for a long time now so we are delighted he has come in for the six months.”

The arrival of McNulty, in particular, has whetted the appetite of many supporters, who have seen Hibs’ attack misfire for much of this season.

The Scottish striker bagged 28 goals for Coventry last term to earn a £1m move to Reading but failed to cement a starting berth at the Madejski Stadium.

“Marc is a million pound player down the road, he is hungry and he wants to go and play football,” added May, who confirmed that Celtic were unwilling to allow Scott Allan to join Hibs on deadline day.