Jake Doyle Hayes absolves Lee Johnson of Hibs injury blame as he reveals why he turned down Duncan Ferguson

Clumsy capital boss Lee Johnson put Jake Doyle-Hayes out of action for the best part of four months after joining in with his Hibs squad on the training field. But the Irish midfielder is just relieved his gaffer has put him straight back into his team after finally returning to full fitness.

Johnson has decided it’s better he hang up his boots for good after his training ground challenge on the former St Mirren ace inflamed a pre-existing injury. The 24-year-old admits he had no idea he’d likely been playing for weeks with a bit of chipped bone floating about his ankle until copping a sore one from his manager.

He was forced to go under the surgeon’s knife to have the issue repaired before making a couple of abortive comeback attempts. It wasn’t until last month’s clash at Celtic Park that the Leith star was able to reclaim his starting slot.

His boss may now have rethought his involvement on the practice pitches but Doyle-Hayes is just glad Johnson’s had no second thoughts about his own role. Recalling the incident, the former Aston Villa trainee said sheepishly: “There was a bit of a coming together in training with the manager but it happens and it could have been any of the lads!

“It was a tackle, a 50-50 and nobody holds back in training so it wasn’t an issue. That’s how it happened, we don’t hold back because we train with intensity.

“The gaffer doesn’t join in a lot - I don’t think he has joined in since! He apologised, said it was an accident but I knew that anyway. It was nobody’s fault, he didn’t mean it and that’s the way we train.

“It could have been any of the lads. I didn’t really know I had the injury, when I got the scan they said it could have been an old injury that was there for a while.

“The doctors