Hibernian manager Pat Fenlon given support by Craig Levein The Irishman had failed to negotiate a safe passage past what his Hearts counterpart, Gary Locke, had described as "a youth team." A solitary goal from Ryan Stevenson was enough to take the Premiership's bottom club, whose outfield players had an average age of 21, into Thursday's draw for the semi-finals of the League Cup, where they were paired with Inverness Caledonian Thistle. However, even though he has presided over only four home wins in 2013, former Hearts, Dundee United and Scotland manager Craig Levein, who made yesterday's draw at Hampden, argues that Hibs should persevere with Fenlon. Hibs are in a reasonable position just now. I think they will be a top-six team. I know you could argue that is expected of them but they haven't always been in the top six. Also, with all due respect, in Scotland we are not getting the best managers in Britain because everything is in tiers and the idea is that you keep moving up. Financially, [in Scotland] they are not the best jobs. Plus it's not in England, where you are the centre of attention, so I believe that if you make the choice to bring a manager in you should give him time to get things right. Levein also revealed that he had provided Fenlon with a glowing reference before chief executive Rod Petrie chose to lure him away from his post with Bohemians in Dublin. "Someone at Hibs phoned me and asked about him," he said. Â "I'd met Pat a few times through a friend of mine in Ireland. Pat did a great job there and I certainly recommended him as a character, although I hadn't worked with him. I think he is a decent person. He is certainly a really hard working guy. As I say, he had that little period where things were not working out. He overcame that. If that defeat on Tuesday had not been against Hearts, it wouldn't have been quite as sore. The fact that Hearts were weakened by a lot of other things probably made Hibs the strongest favourites they have been for a while. That builds the expectation levels for their fans but he is a strong character and he'll battle through it.