Being Cup favourites will really get on our nerves

Hibs have been fancied before so must beware

- TAM McMANUS

IT’S a sentence that will strike the fear of God into all the fans.

Hibs are now favourites to win the Scottish Cup.

I know exactly how the punters will be feeling.

There will be the joy of getting into the semi-finals after a penalty shoot-out.

They will be thrilled Rangers followed Celtic out of the Cup but now the nerves will kick in as expectation levels rise.

The last thing Hibs want is to be favourites but that’s just the way it is. They are the third best team in the country right now, the best side left in the hat and the bookies are not daft.

Listen, we know why the fans will be chewing their fingernails. We have been here before countless times over the years.

I’ve been in this movie as well. We were the big favourites to win the League Cup in 2004. It was hardly a tap-in, mind you.

We had a right good young squad but that Livingston side was packed full of experience, guys like Stuart Lovell, Marvin Andrews, Jamie McAllister and David Fernandez.

They were a good side who had finished third just two years earlier but they didn’t have the pressure of 40,000 nervous wrecks at Hampden.

We didn’t buy into all that favourites or underdog stuff at the time but it is hard to avoid it when there’s so much build-up in the media.

These days with social media, it will be even worse.

But that wasn’t the only time we came a cropper when we were expected to win.