Johnson had to read riot act to motivate men

LEE JOHNSON admitted his slow-starting Hibernian side was scalded by the intensity of Livingston’s performance.

The Easter Road boss expressed his upset at the blasé efforts of the first half as the home side gained the upper hand.

Johnson’s interval rant, the introduction of returning hero Martin

Boyle and tactical switches brought about a sudden improvement.

But Johnson was unhappy that he was required to intervene so strongly.

Johnson said: ‘I just made a really bad analogy... you ask a toddler to make a cup of tea, they get burned.

‘A few of ours got burned out there. I’ll be honest, I was disappointed.

‘And it wasn’t just foreign players or new players. There was a domino effect of negativity until we got them in and were able to re-frame them.

‘It’s a steep learning curve after a really good week, but that’s the tough nature of Scottish football.

‘We got beaten three times last season by Livingston — you can see why. You have to give credit to the opposition.

‘I’m really disappointed with our start. We played into their hands. I thought we were sloppy. It was a little bit casual. It took until half time to get us going.

‘And I don’t think I should have to do that, chuck out the hair dryer, change the tactics too often to get a performance, which I thought was very good.

‘We then attacked the game, we went for the jugular. But there was a terrible moment with a poor goal conceded.’

Johnson reported that Norwegian forward Elias Melkersen hurt his ankle early in the game. And he stressed that Paul Hanlon was withdrawn for young Kyle McClelland with seven minutes to go before any damage was done to the comeback defender.

‘Elias got his studs caught in the surface. He’ll get X-rayed. We had to take Hanlon off,’ said Johnson.

‘He’s only had two 45 minutes and six sessions. He was cramping up and at risk of his calf splitting off. Something had to be done. Rocky Bushiri would’ve started but he wasn’t fit.’

Johnson clashed with Livingston boss David Martindale over a secondhalf penalty claim. Boyle tumbled under contact from Stephane Omeonga and Martindale explained what led to the spat.

‘Martin has won a few penalties against us over the years, but I don’t think he’s a cheat,’ he said.

‘He goes down and commits you to making contact with him. So when we heard it was a dive, the whole bench erupted.

‘From Lee’s point of view, he thought it was a penalty. He was shouting it was a penalty and I was shouting it was a dive. You get caught up in it, that’s football.’