For any 21-year-old striker, twenty goals in an SPL season is no bad return - Anthony Stokes however is still not satisfied with that, having set himself a target for the season a little bit higher than that. It is easy to forget indeed that Stokes is still such a young professional who admits himself he is still learning his trade - but his ambitions when it comes to scoring goals remains high, with a target of 25 for the season remaining in his sights.

Indeed the striker is lamenting missing out on goal 21 at the weekend against Celtic, a game he firmly believes should never have been lost. It was not a great day for Anthony however, as not only did he see his early scoring opportunity pass by but later in the game he was involved in the incident that led to the only goal of the game falling to the visitors: "I knew he was behind me and I could've chested the ball up into the air, but the way it happened I did not think he was come over my shoulder with his head - it was just one of those situations where I was just trying to keep my eye on the ball. I actually made contact with his arm but I think it was one of those situations where if the referee looks at it again he may not have given it, I don't think it was a stonewall penalty by any means."

An unfortunate penalty kick was followed by further ill-luck for a Hibs side that were actually turning in their best performance for some weeks: "Derek had a great effort that came off the woodwork but I had an early chance - nine times out of ten the goalkeeper goes low in that situation and I tried to put it in at the near post, but to be fair to him he stayed up and took the shot. It was a bit of a risk he took as that would normally have gone in, but it paid off for him this time. I felt it was a bad day for me personally because I've missed a chance one on one with the goalkeeper and I've given away a penalty, so I'll just have to concentrate and make up for that next game against Hamilton."

Overall however Stokes has every right to feel pleased with the season he has put in thus far - and he is by no means finished yet: "I am happy enough to have scored 20 goals so far, at the same time there were one or two chances in games I should've taken. You have to just accept that, it's balanced by goals like the one at Ibrox where it's worked out well - overall I'm delighted and hoping to nick a few more before the end of the season. It did take me four or five games at the start of the season to get my sharpness back again but I think I've done alright since then - my thinking is that if I can get around 25 for the season then I'll be happy, and with six games to go I'm hoping that I will do at least that."

The striker appreciates that Hibernian's quest for third slot in the SPL is now a very difficult one to achieve, but he is not ready to give up on that yet either: "Hamilton are a very well organised side who know and play to their own strengths. You know when you play them that they are going to graft and they will be in your face from the start, it's a game where if we turn up in the way we did last time we played them then we can get a few goals - it really is down to us, we have to graft and put the hard work in there and hopefully the football will come from that.

"Dundee United have the lead and are in good form at the minute but we've seen this year that any team can go on a slump so six games can change things. Because of that we simply can't give up - we've seen how our form went as well, fortunes can change very quickly so we'll keep working and you just don't know what will happen so you have to do that."