The Tigers host Southampton on Saturday aiming to secure a second home win of the fledgling campaign
The season is just five games old, and for Hull City, it’s been a solid, if unspectacular, start to life in the Championship for new head coach Sergej Jakirovic.
City have won one, drawn two and lost two of their opening five games, which leaves them sitting in 20th place on five points, but just four off the top six.
Last Saturday’s 97th-minute equaliser from John Egan to earn City a point at Swansea City ensured Jakirovic’s side ended their run of two successive defeats.
Within that run of five league games amid a typically fragmented start to the domestic season given the early international break coupled with the chaos of the transfer window, the Tigers were suffered their annual first-round League Cup exit, throwing away a two-goal lead in stoppage time to eventually lose on penalties at Wrexham.
In those five games, City have scored seven but conceded 11. Only QPR and the two Sheffield clubs at the bottom of the league have conceded more, with 12.
Contrast their start this term to 12 months ago, and things are not hugely different even though the feeling around first team squad and manager is a world away from where it was.
A year ago, under Tim Walter, City were 22nd with no wins, three draws and two defeats from their opening five having suffered a dismal cup exit to Doncaster Rovers amid a flurry of unhappy players, but just two points adrift of where the Tigers are now.
Walter’s side had scored just two goals and conceded six, leaving them with three points from their first five. Those three points, did however, quickly become 12 with three wins in the space of a week. This Saturday, City host Southampton, but the correspending weekend last year saw the Tigers claim their first win at Stoke City, which was followed up by wins over Cardiff City and QPR.
Unfortunately, those results proved to be the final wins of Walter’s tenure, and indeed, for the Tigers until Ruben Selles’ first home game in charge against the Swans in the final outing before Christmas.
There are some similarities with the form of the early weeks of last term in terms of points gained, but crucially for Jakirovic, he’s already got a home win under his belt, and the team don’t have the worries going forward that plagued the last campaign while his squad feels much, much stronger and crucially, an awful lot more potent in the top third of the pitch.
Going the other way is where Jakirovic and his staff must solve the problems, but the manager is confident those are issues he can address, and he must because shipping 11 goals in the past four league games (14 if you include the cup) is not sustainable, and will hamper any hopes of shoooting up the table in the coming weeks.
A win over Southampton on Saturday would also match the number of home victories City managed from the start of the campaign until they met Plymouth Argyle in early March, so it would be doubly significant.
Listen to a full preview with City assistant boss Dean Holden right here
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