The Tigers are firmly in the play-off mix early in the campaign after a terrific start
Hull City just keep on churning out results and sticking two fingers up to all those who said they would be relegation candidates before a ball was kicked, and now, fans are daring to think that perhaps this could be a year to remember.
Before the win at Birmingham City, the Blues hadn’t lost at home in the previous 29 games in the league. Prior to an impressive victory over Leicester City, the Tigers hadn’t won three games in a row in more than a year. That was ticked off. City hadn’t beaten Sheffield United at home in ages, and they did that.
Home form was a massive problem and has been for years, but they’ve won four and drawn two of their seven so far. And then to cap it all off, City hadn’t won at Norwich City in 15 years, having lost the last four on the spin.
Saturday’s 2-0 win in a toxic Carrow Road atmosphere ended that run, and all of a sudden, the Tigers are six games unbeaten and sit seventh in the Championship, outside the top five only on goal difference after what is their best start to a Championship season since 2015/16, and we know what happened at the end of that campaign.
They’ve also bagged half as many goals in the opening 13 games (22) as they did in the entirety of last season’s dismal campaign (44) and they’re doing it without half of their first team.
Oli McBurnie and Joe Gelhardt have already matched last season’s top scorer in the league (Joao Pedro’s six), while Ryan Giles has six assists to his name and is a player reborn, like so many who have improved under the manager’s tutelage.
McBurnie, John Lundstram, Mo Belloumi, Liam Millar, Kasey Palmer and Eliot Matazo are all out injured, while throughout the campaign so far, they’ve been without Matt Crooks, Lewie Coyle, Charlie Hughes, John Egan and Semi Ajayi, amongst others. At no point has Jakirovic been able to name his most potent XI, let alone his strongest squad.
That’s all against the backdrop of the summer struggles, which means the club were only able to operate in the transfer market and bring in loan players where loan fees were not paid, meaning the club missed out on a host of targets.
Despite all of that, in his first season in English football, Jakirovic has City in the play-off shake-up. Of course, they’ve only played 13 games and have two more this week before an international break that should see the return of McBurnie, Lundstram and Belloumi at least.
Twenty-two points from 13 games sees City 13 points above the bottom three already, and just three off the automatic places. Nobody is making any outlandish statements or suggesting the Tigers are contenders at this stage because injuries are hurting them and may continue to, but despite that, the team spirit and collective togetherness are seeing them grind out results, even when they’re not at their best in periods of games. That’s a fantastic trait to have.
City will lose a game again. It might come at Pride Park (hopefully not), it may come against struggling Portsmouth on Saturday, or it might be further down the road. It’s the Championship, you can’t predict when it will arrive, but what you do know for certain is that under Jakirovic, the Tigers look like the real deal.
They’ve bounced back from heavy defeats to Blackburn Rovers and Bristol City to beat Southampton, and then after losing a game they should never have done at Watford, they saw off Sheffield United and haven’t lost since, winning three in a row during the current run.
Irrespective of results in the next two games, this has been a better start than anyone could have imagined at the outset, and once the quality starts coming back, the Tigers will be a team feared more than they are currently.
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