David Gray refused to be drawn on Hibernian’s interest in Grant Hanley after the Scotland defender watched the Easter Road side go down to an agonising 3-2 aggregate defeat at the hands of Midtjylland in the Europa League second qualifying round.
The 33-year-old is a free agent after leaving Birmingham at the end of last season and is a former international team-mate of Hibs’ technical performance manager David Marshall.
Hanley watched from the main stand at Easter Road on Thursday as the spirited Hibees suffered an agonising 2-1 extra-time defeat at the hands of Danish side Midtjylland, fuelling speculation that he is set to join Gray’s squad.
Asked about the defender, Gray said: “I think we’re just always looking into the squad to see what can be done. Right now, whilst the window’s open, you’re always going to be getting speculation and rumours.
“But I’d rather talk about the players that are in the building tonight, purely because of what they’ve given me, and I think that would be the right thing to do. And then we’ll look at that down the line.
“Whilst the window’s open, there’s always a need to be active. There’s always speculation, so we always need to be moving towards making sure we finish the window stronger than when we started it. And that’s what we’re working towards.”
Gray was gutted his side were unable to force a penalty shootout against Midtjylland.
Following a 1-1 draw in Denmark a week previously, and a goalless 90 minutes in Edinburgh, it looked like a tense tie was destined to go to penalties after a sublime extra-time strike from Dario Osorio was cancelled out by a close-range finish from Hibs defender Rocky Bushiri.
But just moments after Midtjylland had replaced goalkeeper Jonas Lossl with Elias Olafsson in anticipation of a shootout, Junior Bramado’s magnificent overhead kick sent the Danes through to the third qualifying round.
Hibs will now parachute into the third qualifying round of the Conference League to face Partizan Belgrade, with the first leg set to be in the Serbian capital next Thursday.
“Very mixed emotions,” said Gray. “I hate losing, but I can’t ask the players for any more. It took three spectacular efforts to beat us over the tie against a real top team. I’m proud of the players.”
Midtjylland head coach Thomas Thomasberg said he always planned to change his goalkeeper if the tie looked set for penalties. “We knew if we got to penalties, Elias is the best for this, I talked to them about it before and they knew this could happen,” he said.
“I give credit to Hibs, we had to work hard in both games but I think we were the best team. We struggled in both games but we are through to the next round and that was the aim.”
