The Tigers have five points from their five games so far this season
Barry is the Hull City correspondent, and previously covered Nottingham Forest for the Nottingham Post/Nottinghamshire Live. Barry has reported on Hull City’s League One title success and Championship campaigns
Saturday’s point at Swansea City was an important line in the sand for new-look Hull City after two really poor defeats at home to Blackburn Rovers and away at Bristol City.
For 40 minutes, the game was as dull as ditchwater, but it came alive from the moment City allowed Jan Vipotnik to crash in the opener.
To their credit, the Tigers responded brilliantly to level up within five minutes through Oli McBurnie, though their early-season half promise was undone when some more haphazard defending allowed Ronald to prod in. John Egan’s volley with added ‘swaz’ ensured they returned home with a point.
That’s four goals in their last two away games and seven for the season in the opening five games, five more than they had managed at this stage 12 months ago.
In the past two games on the road, City have mustered 35 attempts at goal, which is quite impressive for any team in this league playing away from home at two of the more difficult venues in this league.
Going forward, City look really exciting. They’re creating some very good chances, and Sergej Jakirovic has plenty of options after a productive summer in the transfer window, coupled with the return of influential winger Mohamed Belloumi, and the imminent availability of Liam Millar.
Behind figureheard McBurnie, Enis Destan looked bright off the bench as did Joel Ndala who is still finding his feet at Championship level, and Joe Gelhardt was unfortunate not to score a third goal of the season when his terrific header was brilliantly repelled by Lawrence Vigouroux in the Swans’ goal.
David Akintola was good at Ashton Gate but poor in South Wales, and looks like a player that will blow hot and cold as the season progresses, and then there’s Kasey Palmer and Matt Crooks who can both have influence in the top third of the pitch.
City carry a major threat. Some of their attacking play is really good. The Ryan Giles and McBurnie combination feels like one that will continue to flourish as an example.
Jakirovic has created a really exciting and potentially, very poten attacking unit both from the start and off the bench. He’s got players capable of making an impact as we saw on Saturday.
The challenge for him now is to sort out the defensive side of his team, because if he can do that, City will go on and have a really good season.
Only the bottom two – Sheffield United and Sheffield Wednesday – plus QPR have conceded more than the 11 the Tigers have so far, though all of those have come in the past four games since the clean sheet at Coventry City on opening day.
There were also three conceded at Wrexham in the Carabao Cup, two of which came inside a mad 70 seconds post the 90th minute which saw them go from winning 3-1 to drawing 3-3 and losing on penalties.
Jakirovic’s side were better at Swansea compared to Bristol City (29 attempts against), conceding just nine attempts on their goal. The Swans’ only two on target were the goals, and the second leaves your head in your hands, so bad was it.
The City head coach feels that he can sort that out, and sort it out he must. The back four and goalkeeper have had poor starts to the season, but it’s a collective. You need to defend from the front, you need your midfield to be strong, win their battles, and you need players to track runners and be switched on.
Speaking previously, Jose Mourinho talked about the importance of being compact and narrow when defending in order to close off the attacking threat of the opposition, and his words resonate with what we’ve been seeing recently.
“All the good teams, they defend compact. Higher block, lower block. The lower block is more defensive, the higher block is more offensive, more aggressive, but always in a block,” he said on Sky Sports. “There are principles of play that doesn’t have to do with the system that you play, it’s just a basic principle. You have to defend compact.” His point is absolutely on the money. City must be tighter, closer together and stop being so open, especially in transition.
There’s so much to admire about Jakirovic’s setup, the way the team look going forward, but his challenge now is to find the balance between having a really potent attacking side, but one that doesn’t concede at least two goals a game, which naturally makes it difficult to win too many games of football.
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