Reedijk has 'sick feeling in stomach' - are his Hibs team in relegation fight?

Six home defeats from the club's last seven Premiership matches isn't on Reedijk. He's only been in the building a matter of weeks.

The task facing him, however, is culture change while winning. Tricky enough at the best of times but especially so when two of your next three games are against champions Celtic and arch-rivals Hearts in a national cup semi-final at Hampden.

Reedijk wants his side to dominate games. That happened, to a large extent, against Falkirk, with Hibs enjoying 70% possession.

It's what they do with the ball though that is their undoing at present. A failure to convert chances allied to individual errors. They had 17 shots to Falkirk's 10. Tellingly, the visitors had more on target: five compared to the hosts' three.

Reedijk can be encouraged by some of the other metrics: more entries into the final third (68 to 48); more touches in the opposition box (29 to 16); a higher tally of expected goals (1.35 to 0.76).

The only stat that matters to the external world however is a scoreline that leaves Hibs flailing at the wrong end of the table having taken a single point from the last available 18.

Under Reedijk's predecessor David Gray, Hibs enjoyed back-to-back top-six finishes for the first time since the late 2000s and were just minutes away from group-stage European football until a late collapse at home to Gent.

It was put to the former Hearts forward Ryan Stevenson that, right now, Hibs look a mess. "Yes, they do," he said on BBC Radio Scotland's Sportsound.

"I don't know David Gray but I like David Gray. I know people say it came to a natural end but sometimes the grass is not always greener.

"They were better in the second half but did Falkirk ever really look like they were going to concede a goal? I don't think so.

"It's worrying, the fact that they're bottom of the league. It's still tight down there. It was a massive three points from Kilmarnock that's allowed them to go above Hibs. They need results fast."

Former Hibs midfielder Michael Stewart agrees but accepts finding those improved performances is not easy when the manager is still assessing his available options.

"There are a lot of questions that remain unanswered," he said on Sportsound.

"It feels a little bit like that at this moment where they're searching for something. Searching for a system. Searching for personnel. Searching for partnerships to evolve and bring them results.

"The new manager's in the door, he's got three massive games coming up, right on the back of two defeats."

Reedijk is adamant he sees positive signs and that there was improvement on the first performance under his watch at Dundee United last Saturday. That, too, ended in defeat.

The manager now has the dual task of keeping players and supporters alike onside while dragging the team away from the relegation zone. Hearts at Hampden also looms large on his horizon the day after Halloween.

The timescale to turn the Hibs tanker around could look a whole lot less scary if there's a national cup final to look forward to.