This coming Saturday marks the 3 year anniversary of Hibernian appointing Ben Kensell as CEO of the club and to say he divides opinion would be an understatement. The club had finished 3rd (the first time since Tony Mowbray), and midway through that summer Kensell was hired as the new CEO replacing Leeann Dempster, who had left the previous winter. Since then, the club has struggled to replicate the form that had been achieved during the covid season and the on-pitch product has stagnated heavily. Recruitment of both players and managers has seriously declined, but the club seems more interested in pointing at increased commercial revenues. What has happened in the 3 years he has been in charge that has led to the deterioration of Hibs as a football team? Has he been held accountable for the various mistakes that have been made?
Football Structure
When Kensell came in, he was working with a Sporting Director in Graham Mathie. After a poor summer window that only yielded Jake Doyle-Hayes, Nathan Wood and James Scott, he pointed the finger of blame at Mathie and sacked him as a result. He maintained over the first year and a half of his tenure that the club “did not need” a Director of Football and instead settled on a “transfer committee approach”. The club focused heavily on “data-driven” recruitment, and spent a lot of money in wages and fees post-Mathie. To suggest that the results were poor would be an understatement and Kensell admitted that it was a mistake not to have a Director of Football and began a process to hire one during the latter half of the 2022/23 season. The eventual hire was Brian McDermott, who came in with an impressive CV and was expected to take over all footballing decisions with a focus on recruitment. A year later, and he was being punted out the door. Malky Mackay took over his job (albeit with a different name of Sporting Director) and the jury is still out on whether that hire is the correct one.
Prior to hiring Mackay, Kensell hasn’t been able to settle on a footballing structure that has yielded results on the pitch. It is remarkable that he has retained the responsibility of controlling the football structure given how unsettled it has been in recent years. It’s also pertinent to touch on Foley’s comments midweek about how the hierarchy have not been listening to him. While I don’t like Foley going public, it’s concerning to me that a significantly more successful footballing structure offering advice to Hibs has been ignored for the ‘wisdom’ in house. Leaking the exact disagreements to the EEN is also a sign of weak leadership, as it just heaps pressure on to David Gray during a time where Hibs should be rallying around him. Overall, Kensell has shown that he can’t be trusted to get the footballing structure right and in my opinion, it is crucial that this responsibility is taken out of his hands.
Managerial and Player Recruitment
High manager turnover has been the root cause of a lot of Hibs’ player problems. We have had 5 permanent managers in Kensell’s 3 years in charge. The styles of these managers are completely different to each other and it has a huge knock on effect on player recruitment. Not only do Hibs’ have to alter the player profile they are looking for, the players they already do have often become a profile that is not needed for the style of team that is being built. This isn’t an issue if managerial changes occur every 2/3 seasons, but when there’s only been 1 manager (Lee Johnson) to last a full season it creates a squad that has a mess of profiles that do not fit together. There hasn’t been a consistent strategy in the transfer market under Kensell and it has created a squad that is incredibly bloated yet is lacking in quality.
Hibs are spending more on players than ever before in terms of wages and fees but that investment hasn’t been reflected with on-pitch success. The buck stops with Kensell on that front, as the various transfer set ups he has implemented haven’t yielded good enough results and have ultimately cost managers their jobs. I appreciate that recruitment isn’t a straightforward process, but the results simply have not been good enough for both managers and players.
On-Pitch Results
Image credit- Hibernian FC
Hibs’ commercial off-field success has been well documented by the club. Growing revenue streams are great, but when it isn’t matched by success on the pitch it doesn’t mean an awful lot to the matchgoing fan. Hibs haven’t had consistency on the pitch since Jack Ross. Maloney struggled to win games because of a lack of firepower, Lee Johnson went through hot and cold streaks and Nick Montgomery’s team would be magic one week and abysmal the next. The high turnover in both players and managers is indicative of an inconsistency that runs right up to the boardroom. The messaging could not be more unclear from the hierarchy at Hibs. There hasn’t been a plan for what the on-pitch product should look like, what style of football we want to play and how we fit players and coaches into that model. League positioning has been bleak, with 2 bottom 6 finishes. We’ve been knocked out of the League Cup group stages, and the first round of the Scottish Cup (that too at home to Hearts). Trophies will always be a rarity considering the quality Celtic and Rangers have, but we had been a regular at the semi-final/final stages of both tournaments over a number of years. Under Kensell? Not so much. We have regressed so much on the pitch and a lot of it can be traced back to decisions he made.
Summary
Football clubs are complex beings with a variety of stakeholders who influence what happens on and off the pitch. This is true at Hibs too. It is also true that some stakeholders have more influence than others. Kensell has the most influence at the club outside of Ian Gordon and he has done since he was hired 3 years ago. To be blunt, the decisions he has made since he was hired have set this club back a number of years. The lack of any consequences/accountability for what has gone on at the club is a serious issue. Kensell has repeatedly shown us that he can not get things right on the football side of the club, yet he was the lead on hiring Malky Mackay this summer. The “internal review” that was due to be undertaken with the help of the Black Knights this summer has been swiftly forgotten about, with Foley becoming frustrated enough to call out the club for not listening to him. The arrogance that is required to fail for 3 years and still believe that your own process isn’t the issue is staggering.
In my opinion, he should have lost his job when Lee Johnson did. A culture of failure and underachievement has been allowed to fester in the boardroom because those in charge can continually get things wrong and not be asked difficult questions. Fans were rightly upset at the end of this season, and many questioned Kensell’s future. Instead of accepting fair criticism, Hibs’ chairman Malcolm Macpherson lamented the “abuse” Kensell and others on the board were facing. This mentality has to change. The board continue to hide behind the manager and the players to avoid facing scrutiny for their mismanagement of the club. It has been 3 years with Kensell. There shouldn’t be another one.
Featured Image credits- Alan Rennie
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