'Horrendous': Hibs react to David Gray sacking amid next manager update as new injury issue comes up

Gray and his assistants Liam Craig and Craig Samson were removed from his position at Hibs less than 24 hours after a 1-0 home defeat by Kilmarnock. The Easter Road outfit sit ninth in the Premiership after six matches and face Aberdeen in Leith on Saturday.

John Potter will be in interim charge for that game, with Hibs expected to appoint Gray’s successor during the upcoming international break.

“It's always horrendous when it happens,” said Newell, who was a former teammate of Gray at Hibs before he became a coach. “So it's been a tough week for everyone, not just the players, everyone at the club. The man that's done so much here, along with Sammy and Liam, both had a massive part in the recent history as well as what they've done over his spell as a player, coach, everything. So, yeah, it's been a tough week.

“I think when people lose their jobs, it's never on the back of positivity, it's not because we've been doing things right,” continued Newell. “So there's always an element of blame for all of us. But he takes responsibility, that's something he always done. He always protected his players and it was always something I thought was really noble and kind of summed him up as a man. It was always his team and his responsibility.

“Football moves on quickly but I think it's important that everyone at the club remembers him for what he's done, which they will, I'm sure they will.”

Potter echoed Newell’s sentiments on Gray. “It's obviously been very difficult,” he said. “Obviously Dave kind of brought me in. I spoke to Malky [Mackay] and Dave [Marshall] on Wednesday ... can you take the game, can you take training, make sure the guys are prepared? There is a little break after that and the club's obviously working away, but could you go and just organise the staff and the players for the game on Saturday? And that's what I'm going to do.

“I've made sure it's been organised yesterday and today and then we've got a couple of meetings later on this afternoon to make sure we're good to go for tomorrow. It's important that we get to our job and our job is to try and win a game of football and that's the players job and that's the staff's job that will take the game. We'll be prepared and after that it's up to the club and the people at the club to decide.”

Potter does not yet know if he will take the team on pre-planned training camp overseas the week after next. “We've put it into place in terms of what's required, training times,” he said. “We spoke to the staff about players that are going and players that are international so that's all organised. But in terms of what goes ahead there or who takes it, we don't know yet. We'll just need to react as we go.”

Hibs will be without defender Kanayo Megwa for the match against Aberdeen, with the 22-year-old suffering a thigh issue in the match against Kilmarnock. He will now see specialists to determine the next course of action.

“Megwa hurt himself in the game the other night,” said Potter. “He'll be out and he's got to see a couple of people, so we'll know in time. We've got a couple returning and a little bit of training today. And that just depends how they react later on this afternoon, tomorrow morning. So there's a couple of moving parts. But apart from that, I think we should have a relatively good squad ready for tomorrow.”