Victorious Neil Lennon felt it was the best Hibs performance he’d overseen since taking charge at Easter Road last summer.
Vanquished Ray McKinnon however stopped short of saying it was the worst Dundee United performance he’d been responsible for since he took control of team matters at Tannadice around the same time.
Had the Tangerines manager decided to say so, it’s hard to imagine any Arab who was in the capital would have argued with him.
Because if the Hibees beating United at home to stretch their lead at the top of the Championship could hardly rank as a shock, the nature of the 3-0 victory in Friday night’s big game surely was.
For United, you see, were never at the races.
They put in a performance that was as uncharacteristic as it was unexpected.
They had, of course, lost three times in the league before this season and the two defeats at lowly Dumbarton were particularly rankling for fans.
But in those games and the September reversal at Falkirk, the victors at least had to work hard for the three points they took.
That wasn’t the case this time as the loss of cheap first half goals and a defensive vulnerability previously unseen this term saw United go down tamely.
In fact, had Hibs decided to press home their superiority instead of largely holding what they had in the second half, this defeat could have been even more damaging.
In a game they went into with so much hope, the visitors simply never gave themselves a chance.
Behind to a Jason Cummings goal after an opening six minutes that saw them barely able to get out of their own penalty box, never mind their half, McKinnon’s men never recovered.
Cummings would strike again before the half hour mark and the harsh truth was that by the interval United had to be relieved the deficit wasn’t at least a couple of goals more.
Because during those 45 minutes they were overwhelmed by the division leaders.
A defence that not so long ago was going the best part of seven games without conceding, looked like they might do so each time the opposition got anywhere near their goal.
And if there was something of a rally after the break it was without any significant goal threat until a Tope Obadeyi header in the 76th minute was well saved by Ross Laidlaw in the home goal.
That was United’s first and only good chance of the night. The Hibs response was swift and ruthless.
They quickly added a third through substitute John McGinn.
Incidentally the sight of the Scotland international coming on late in the game to return from injury, can’t have made United’s night any better.
Well struck as his goal was, he was helped by the poor defending that was also a feature of Cummings’ brace.
The only small consolations on a miserable night were the appearance near the end of new signing Thomas Mikkelsen and the fact, although they were well-beaten, that the gap at the top is only four points.
There is plenty of time left in the campaign for it to be closed.
For that to happen United will have to play much better than this and return to the kind of mean defending that has been a feature of their play all season.
Until Friday that is.
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