Shaun Maloney on what Hibs need to beat Hearts as he promises 'very different next season'

Shaun Maloney has spoken a lot about the history and the culture of the club he joined a few months ago.

The Hibs manager is keen to reflect the traditions and style of play associated with the Easter Road outfit but, going forward, he says he will be more selective in the traits he wants to imbue in his side and the players he brings in to bolster the club’s ambitions.

Looking to steer clear of the Hibsing slurs, he doesn’t want a squad that possesses style but no substance.

Already this term, the squad he inherited, laced with a few winter acquisitions but minus some key performers, came up short of their league targets and will see out the remainder of the campaign in the bottom half of the table.

It leaves them facing an all or nothing Scottish Cup semi-final against Hearts and while Maloney is confident that he has pinpointed areas where the game can be won, sweeping aside the 3-1 defeat to the same opponents last weekend, for his plan to work, his players have to turn up and, at the very least, compete. For more than the 25 minutes they mustered at Tynecastle last weekend.

Against a team which will see out the Premiership season in third place and has developed a culture of bouncing back from adversity and proving people wrong, the Hibs players will also have to show more resilience than they managed in the last head-to-head, when, having allowed Hearts to equalise just before half-time, they lost another goal just after the interval and never looked likely to stage a comeback, eventually leaking a third goal along with their confidence.

“The timing of the goals definitely had an impact on the game but they shouldn't have had that big an impact,” admitted Maloney, who revealed the players appear to have responded