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Chris Cadden reveals extra Hibs motivation to repay David Gray after boss' personal sacrifices during injury hell
David Gray went above and beyond to help Chris Cadden through his injury hell. Now the Hibs wide man is desperate to go the extra mile in his boss' hour of need.
Cadden says the entire dressing room is behind the under fire boss as they look to haul themselves off the bottom of the Premiership table at least for a couple of hours this evening. But the 28-year-old revealed Gray did more than anyone when he came back from a serious injury that saw him miss nine months of action between May 2023 and February this year.
Whether it was one-to-one sessions on the park or sitting watching every second of his comeback matches on video before going through them minute by minute in the analysis room, Cadden knows he owes Gray a debt of gratitude. And there’s no better way to repay that than by helping deliver the results that will ease the pressure on the 36-year-old.
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Gray was given a vote of confidence by the Hibs board after the defeat to St Mirren a fortnight ago left them rooted to the bottom of the table with just one win from 12 league games. And Cadden said: ““I can't speak for everyone else but I was delighted (with that statement) because we were all behind the manager.
“I've known the gaffer for a while now and he's been brilliant, he's especially been brilliant to me as a player, a coach and as a manager. We played similar positions and I came in the back end of the gaffer's playing career and he moved on to a coach.
“When he was a coach he had a bit more time to work specifically with different players and the amount of meetings I've had, the amount of sitting in rooms watching clips of myself, what he thinks, what he thinks I can improve on, what he thinks I'm good, keep on going with.
“For example when I was coming back from Achilles, I played a reserve game against Ayr United and he watched the full game, sat through the clips, he sat and watched the full game and clipped it all up and spoke to me about what he thinks and what to work on to get better.
“Another example, when I was coming in training before the boys had games, the gaffer would come in early on a Saturday to come and train me and then go to the game when Nick Montgomery was the manager. Little things like that, he's been unbelievable to me, he's been a real big influence on my career since I've come here. He's improved me 100 per cent and he obviously keeps wanting players to get better as well.”
Cadden is in his fifth season - and his fifth manager - at Easter Road since returning to Scotland from Columbus Crew in the States. Signed by Jack Ross he’s seen his first boss fired followed by Shaun Maloney, Lee Johnson and Nick Montgomery. The 28-year-old knows it can’t always be the manager to blame.
He said: “When you're losing games of football there's always a feeling of letting people down. The gaffer, the fans, the club, you can go deeper like home with your family… it's not a nice place to be when you are losing games of football. So of course the gaffer comes under that.
“Players, we're the only ones that can change it. The gaffer can put us whatever tactics he wants, it's us as players that can go and change it.
“No one else, the 11 boys and the subs that come on and we've got to have that mentality that we want to go and do that and a game can't come quick enough because the only way it's going to change is with games of football. We can do formations, 4-3-3, whatever he wants to play, 3-5-2, whatever it is, it doesn't really matter unless the mentality is right. That's what our focus is to be on. It's going to be tough as we know but from a player's point of view mentality has got to be spot on.
“Listen, being here for a while now, it's a big club. When the good times are good, it's good but when they're bad, it's like any big club, it's tough. You've worked so hard to get to a big club, to get to a stage like this and one of the biggest clubs in the country and you want it to be a success, that's what you want.
“It's low but that's the nature of being at a big club, you've just got to pick yourself up and this is what you signed up for at the end of the day when you sign the contract with Hibs, it's tough but the good times do make it worthwhile, so hopefully we can get to that and kick on from Saturday.”
