CHRIS CADDEN’S return to Fir Park didn’t go exactly as planned as his Hibernian side were forced to settle for a point against Motherwell but the wing-back wasn’t surprised to receive a hostile reception in Lanarkshire.

The 25-year-old came through the youth ranks at ‘Well before sealing a move to MLS’ Columbus Crew in 2019 in somewhat controversial circumstances. As a free agent moving abroad, Cadden’s decision ensured Motherwell entered a lengthy negotiation process to land a development fee for the player, who then immediately joined Oxford United on loan.

As such, the warm welcome he received from the home crowd on Wednesday night didn’t exactly catch him off-guard – and although his side were unable to make the extra man count as Liam Donnelly was shown a second yellow card with 20 minutes left to play, Cadden saw plenty of positives to take from the goalless draw.

“I know – bloody hell! This was the first time I’ve played here since I left and it was good to be back,” Cadden said of the home support’s reaction.

“But it was a hard shift in tough, windy conditions and I thought we played as well as we could in the circumstances. We just need to get a wee bit better in the final third.

“With the players we have, though, that’s not a worry for me. I thought we dominated the ball.

“Of course, we’re frustrated that we couldn’t take advantage of them being down to 10 men for the last 20 minutes or so but it’s never a foregone conclusion when that happens.

“Sometimes it can be more difficult because the other team just sits in but we were disappointed we didn’t go on to win it.

“Fir Park is a hard place to go to, however. Not many visiting teams are going to come away with a win.”

Australia internationalist Martin Boyle, Hibs’ talismanic forward who last week completed a move to Saudi Arabia, was conspicuous by his absence on a night where Hibs’ forward line failed to get going.

The men from the capital failed to register a single shot on target over the course of the game but Cadden is confident that it won’t be long until his team-mates start chipping in with goals to mitigate the loss of Boyle.

“Boylie was unbelievable for this club,” he observed. “He’d been brilliant ever since I came here and he deserved his move and everything that comes with it.

“We’ve also brought in good players like Chris Mueller and Demetri Mitchell in this transfer window and that’s good business.

“Obviously, Boylie scored a lot of goals for us and we all need to do our bit to make up for that loss.

“I finally got off the mark against Dundee United on Boxing Day and the manager has encouraged me to get forward more often and make more runs to the back post so I’m hoping to chip in with a few more.

“I had one cross/shot which went just wide near the end on Wednesday. I haven’t seen a replay of it so I don’t know if the wind caught the ball but I was just trying to feed it in, hoping that someone would be left with a tap-in.”

New signing Demetri Mitchell made his first appearance for Hibs after arriving on a two-and-a-half year deal last week while Norwich City loanee Rocky Bushiri caught the eye in defence. The centre-half’s running battle with Kevin van Veen provided the defender with a stern examination but Cadden reckons it’s one the 22-year-old Belgian passed with flying colours.

“He turned the after-burners on at one point after coming on and he looked really swift,” Cadden said of Mitchell’s brief cameo off the bench. “We have real competition for places now and you need that at a big club like Hibs.

“You need everybody to be on their toes and performing at a high level if they want to play on a Saturday.

“Rocky Bushiri showed that at Fir Park. He had a hard night against Kevin van Veen, who’s a tough guy capable of giving centre-halves the runaround, but Ricky was brilliant against him.

“He’s been excellent since he came into the side and, when you consider he hadn’t played much football before then, it’s a real credit to him. I’ve been really impressed by him and I believe he’s only going to get better.”

Motherwell defender Jake Carroll, meanwhile, was left disappointed with the result as he felt his side did enough to win the match but chose to look on the bright side as his team stretched their unbeaten run at home to six games in all competitions.

Donnelly’s dismissal meant that the odds were stacked against his side for the final 20 minutes or so at Fir Park but Carroll takes heart from the fact that he and his fellow defenders didn’t give Hibs a sniff on Wednesday night.

“Of course we could have won the game,” he said. Especially at home we’re looking to win but going down to 10 men, we’re happy to take the point and move on.

“Kells [goalkeeper Liam Kelly] has said he didn’t really have anything to do. There was a chance at the start [for Kevin Nisbet] where we’ve tried to play him offside and he’s got in behind but apart from that we were quite solid and we felt comfortable during the game.

“100 per cent [it keeps our momentum going]. Obviously we had a bad loss against Ross County and we were trying to get that out of our system. We picked up a good win on Saturday and got there in the end. We’ve continued our unbeaten run [at home] and Hibs are a good team, so to not get beat is good.

“The most important thing was not to lose but that’s not the way we approached it. We wanted to win the game and you could see that in how we played, we were on the front foot. If you look at the overall picture, it’s probably a better point for us than it is for them.”