‘Fantastic player’ Ryan Porteous lifted Hibernian on return from suspension

Hibernian caretaker manager David Gray was delighted to have Ryan Porteous back from a lengthy ban in Saturday’s 1-1 draw with Aberdeen.

The defender was available after serving a four-game cinch Premiership suspension, although he did feature in last month’s Scottish Cup semi-final defeat by rivals Hearts.

Porteous showed his value to the team with a man-of-the-match performance against the Dons as the hosts claimed a point through Paul McGinn’s equaliser after David Bates had given Jim Goodwin’s men the lead.

Gray said: “I thought Ryan was fantastic – he’s not played for a few weeks so it was always going to be a bit of a risk at this stage to throw him in and see how he was but he didn’t show any signs of rustiness.

“He’s trained exceptionally well, he works really hard, and I think he’s a fantastic player.

“He’s had his challenges at times, and I think he knows that, but when his head is on it and he’s in a good place like he is at the moment, he’s a top centre-half at this level.”

After failing to land a single shot on target in the previous weekend’s loss to Livingston, Gray was encouraged that Hibs at least looked more menacing in the final third against Aberdeen.

He added: “In the first half I thought we had a couple of big chances in the game but I wasn’t too happy with our play without the ball; I thought it was too easy for Aberdeen to switch the play and we struggled to get hold of it.

“When we did have it, our shape was causing them a bit of a problem but we made a wee change at half-time and I thought we started the second half really well.

“The change really helped us but to then lose the goal took the momentum out of us a little bit.

“Credit to the boys who came on, I thought they made a big difference as