THROUGHOUT the season, the car park at Hibs' state-of-the-art training centre is brimful by ten o'clock as Mixu Paatelainen's stars drift in for the day's work. Today, a solitary Mercedes stands in splendid isolation, the only sign of activity with the Easter Road squad having grabbed their passports and headed for a well-earned, if short, break.
As a result, Paatelainen has been left home alone – not that the Hibs boss is complaining, insisting the peace and quiet is giving him the chance to prepare thoroughly for what will be his first full season in charge of the Edinburgh club.
Reveali
ng his only concession to the close season thus far has been to arrive at 9am, an hour later than usual as he takes advantage of a less hectic schedule to run his children to school, Paatelainen believes these lonely days will prove to be the most important.
While admitting he could do much of the work at home, Paatelainen enjoys the solitude of the well-appointed coaches' room, complete with computers and a plasma screen on which he can view the many DVDs stacked on his desk.
He said: "I could do it anywhere because everything is on a memory stick. But I feel it is natural for me to come here where everything is in place.
"I miss the training because I am here alone but, on the other hand, it's perfect. I can really think, really plan with no traffic coming through the coaches' room all the time.
"To me this is the most important time, it's when you plan the training, the way you are going to play, who you want to bring in, what type of players you want. You put all these pieces together and then during pre-season you fine tune it all."
Paatelainen readily concedes you cannot simply plan for the forthcoming ten months and expect everything to work exactly to expectations, but he is adamant that having a clear vision of what he wants is vital.
He said: "I believe you have to have a plan, you have to have everything clearly in place so that you know exactly what you are doing – and it makes it easier as well.
"Whatever happens during a season is never straightforward, of course there are always complications. But if you do not have a clear plan in mind and on paper you will get lost.
"I plan in detail, the training, the workload I put on the squad, tactics sessions, recovery sessions, pre-season games and so on. I want to do things carefully, there has to be a logic.
"You need to be sure you do not overwork the players, on the other hand you want to make sure they are fit. You want to make sure you have enough tactical sessions but you can get mentally tired. It's a fine balance you need to find."
Paatelainen is well aware that the eyes of all Hibs fans will be on him as they look for him to produce his "own" team on the park following his arrival halfway through last season, which saw an immediate refreshening of the squad with the signing of John Rankin, Ian Murray, Colin Nish and Abdel Zarabi, who has already departed having failed to settle in Scotland.
He did, however, warn that the transformation he wants to see take place at Easter Road will take time, a point perhaps indicated by the fact that he himself signed a four-and-a-half year deal when he succeeded John Collins.
He said: "When a new manager comes in fans expect him to click his fingers and everything is all right but it doesn't happen like that. There's maybe an initial reaction to the new system but actually learning how to play a certain way takes a long time."
Paatelainen, of course, has already stamped his own authority on his side with a more direct approach than Collins but he insisted that while he has no objection to players improvising and using their imagination – having been part of a Hibs side which boasted the likes of Russell Latapy and Franck Sauzee – there has to be a gameplan in place.
He said: "The learning process takes years, it doesn't happen overnight – it's a fact. You need thousands and thousands of repititions. But I do not have two or three years, I need to produce results straight away. Hence everything has to be very clear and relatively simple so the players can learn the stuff quicker.
"Improvising and using your imagination is important, and I feel we have enough of that, but there also has to be a very clear framework."
Part of Paatelainen's summer planning will, of course, result in further new faces arriving at Easter Road with David van Zanten of St Mirren the first, but the Hibs boss believes he already has the nucleus of a squad which can be successful.
He said: "I feel we are on the right lines, I feel we have got the right types and I think we showed in some matches we can play the way I want us to play. The signs are from the players that they have the ability to take the information on board."
Although Hibs ultimately ended the season in sixth place, Paatelainen insisted he was relatively satisfied with the way his first few months as manager had gone, the Easter Road side having gone from languishing in eighth place to within touching distance of playing in the UEFA Cup next season.
He said: "I am happy with they way things went because we had a positive, determined attitude. We enjoyed our training sessions, I could see the players enjoy their work, I could see they wanted to do the stuff we practised during the week. They had the right attitude towards it all and I think we have a great atmosphere now inside the dressingroom which can only get better.
"There's no question the top six was a disappointment, there's no hiding from that at all. But there was a very fine line between fnishing sixth and third. It's all ifs and buts now, but we should have won at Tannadice in the first of the top six games and blew it. We lost two points because of that penalty. I was disappointed but encouraged by the way we played, the attitude we had. Maybe our mentality is not tough enough, we are not ruthless enough to achieve things and we need to look at it and improve.
"The fact we had a slight chance to finish third tells me we are not far off."
