Mixu: My lazy slobs will be booted out

Aug 10 2008 By Ewan Smith

MIXU PAATELAINEN slammed his "lazy" midfield over the way they defended at Kilmarnock's late winner - and warned he'll weed the slackers out of Easter Road.

The Hibs boss saw his side crash to a damaging opening day defeat after poor tracking back from his midfielders gave Jamie Hamill the space to latch on to a lay-off and fire home from 20 yards.

And despite the fact his team were down to 10 men at the time - with defender David Van Zanten off the park getting treatment for a head knock - Mixu pointed the finger of blame firmly at his midfield trio of Filipe Morais, Fabian Yantorno and Dean Shiels. He said: "I am concerned, deeply concerned. I felt we had the game under control.

"Offensively and defensively we looked excellent but once again we were blunt in front of their goal and didn't punish them.

"You don't get more glorious chances in front of goal than we had in the first half and your strikers must score in that situation.

"Our midfield didn't want to defend. We got punished by them scoring and now we suffer.

"We were very disciplined and the boys got back in and defended but for one attack they didn't.

"Certain individuals know if you have lazy players like that you leave yourself open and are always liable to lose goals. Players who have a lazy streak won't play for me and I'm deeply disappointed it happened.

"I pointed that out to them at the end and the players must accept that. It's a fact that they must accept the responsibility for."

Shiels admitted Mixu was right to rip into his squad with a post-match verbal volley.

The Hibs star said: "The manager said a lot of things to us at the end.

"He has told us what we need to do better at and we'll leave that in the changing room.

"We lost a bad goal because we were guilty of committing too many men forward when we only had 10 men on the park and we need to be more organised."