The 48-hour period before a football game takes place is a fascinating period of time. Traditionally it's when the manager delivers updates about the health of his team; usually which players are definitely out injured, and which ones might be fit, while the more eagle-eyed amongst the fanbase are scouring social media for training pictures, enlarging photos to within a pixel of their life and trying to identify the player half-hidden by a team-mate and visible only by their boots. 

Nick Montgomery will on Saturday take charge of his third game in seven days when Hibs host Dundee, looking to continue their good run under the guidance of the former Central Coast Mariners manager. But in all honesty, if the Hibs Observer did another 'predicted line-up' article, it would probably look very similar to our piece before the St Mirren cup game. And the one ahead of the St Johnstone victory last weekend. 

While that's probably good from the fans' point of view, and for the team a positive in terms of consistency of selection, not to mention straightforward for the coaching staff, copying and pasting our thoughts from Wednesday wouldn't make for interesting reading. 

In his pre-match comments on the club's website, Montgomery said: "When you have three games in the week you have to top up the boys who haven’t played, and pull back the guys that have. [Martin Boyle] is always sprinting around, taking free-kicks, shooting, and I had to stop him from doing that on Friday. You want the players as fresh as possible going into the game. It’s always about the team, we have strength in depth, and we mostly have two players in each position fighting for a spot in the first team; fighting in a good way, supporting each other. You’ve seen in the last few games that the players we’ve brought off the bench have given us either more energy, more power, or changed things, and that’s the sign of a good squad."

Unbeaten in three games since taking the reins, Montgomery is understandably keen to maintain that run, as well as fostering and growing the consistency that brought a promising performance against Kilmarnock, and victories against St Johnstone and St Mirren in the Viaplay Cup quarter-finals. There should be no need to change things up for the sake of it. 

Montgomery gives the impression of quite enjoying the fact that he has two players for just about every position - a nice dilemma to have, if you will. He spoke about Paul Hanlon and Dylan Levitt during his pre-match press conference, confirming that the latter will take part in a bounce game next week and as a result is presumably highly unlikely to start or possibly even feature against Dundee while the club captain, who has featured off the bench, has replaced Rocky Bushiri on two occasions. Bushiri hasn't played much and by Montgomery's own admission, the club are managing his condition given the lengthy travelling undertaken by the centre-back during the last international break, allied with the fact he hasn't played a lot of football in recent seasons. So it wouldn't be a great surprise to see Hanlon starting this game and perhaps making way for Rocky for the final 15-20 minutes in a case of role reversal. 

While it feels a little early for Rory Whittaker to be starting - and the coaching staff have a duty of care to the 16-year-old to ensure they are not placing too much expectation on him in terms of performance levels and impact - there are other options ready to come in to the starting team if required. Jair Tavares started against St Johnstone, came off the bench against Kilmarnock, and was an unused substitute against St Mirren. Josh Campbell featured against Kilmarnock and St Mirren, bagging an assist against the latter, but not St Johnstone. If you look at the squad as a whole across the three games, the only outfield player to have been involved in all three squads and not featured at all is Levitt, as discussed, and Montgomery has largely rotated his squad to manage three games inside a week. 

It is clear that there are some outfield players who, provided they are fit, will play the bulk of most matches. Joe Newell is one, Jimmy Jeggo is another. Martin Boyle and Jordan Obita also look like first picks, as do Lewis Miller and Will Fish. Montgomery has spoken on more than one occasion about players having more of an impact on a game by coming off the bench than if they started. It seems similar to the rugby concept of 'finishers' in that individuals are being introduced to the game with the intention of changing the outcome, not just to give one or two starting players a break, or to replace an injury. 

When the Hibs team is confirmed at 1.45pm on Saturday, it will be interesting to note what changes, if any, Montgomery has made. Because whether he keeps the same line-up, or makes a handful of changes, there will almost certainly be a coherent argument for both.