City’s fans will be keen to see a response from their side after Friday night’s nightmate
Assistant head coach Dean Holden admits there needs to be improvement from everyone at Hull City in a bid to find a solution to their defensive issues.
City conceded four times in a disastrous first half to lose 4-1 at home to Middlesbrough last Friday night, taking their tally of goals conceded to 34 in the opening 19 games.
Only bottom-side Sheffield Wednesday have shipped more than City, and Holden admits the problems that have plagued their campaign so far are a real threat to any hopes of sustaining a play-off surge.
Three points against Boro would have moved City third for 24 hours at least, but a fourth defeat in six saw them slip two points adrift of the top six.
Attention now for the Tigers turns to a Wrexham side who are unbeaten in their last nine games, but are the division’s draw specialists with nine in their 19 matches.
“If you look at the game on Friday night in isolation. The first goal was really disappointing from our point of view, from a goal kick. We didn’t get the press quite right. We were a yard short in certain areas, and they got in behind us and punished us,” Holden told Hull Live.
“The second, third and fourth goals have come from us in possession and giving away cheap possession in poor areas, so it’s not always about looking at just when we’ve not got the ball. It goes two ways, and I’ve sat here a few times and said that we have to improve; we can’t get away from that.
“We’re looking for different ways to do that, of course, with system changes, and little things within the style about when we press and when we’re making sure when we do go, we go together and not in isolated units.
“We’ve been through it with the players, and it’s up to all of us. You can’t put the blame on one player or a unit. It’s all of us in it together; we know that, and we said that all season.
“The big challenge for us is to start to keep the door shut a little bit more than we have done because it is undermining what is a very, very good attacking display at times. Without key players, we’ve still managed to keep scoring the goals, but we need to try to fix the defensive woes because that’s going to hurt us eventually.”
It’s not unreasonable to suggest that perhaps the punch on the nose Boro administered had been coming, with Norwich City and Stoke City both missing big chances in games where the Tigers went on to win, and Holden admitted that his side were perhaps fortunate to escape on those occasions without damage.
“I think that’s fair,” Holden said of City, perhaps riding their luck at times. “You can look back throughout the season, there are games that we’ve won that maybe we got on the right end of something during the game. I think Norwich, in particular, talking about that one, we made some changes at half-time, changed the system, and it was much better in that second half and deservedly ran out winners in the end.
“After that first half, it could have been a different story. We’re humble enough to accept that every time you win, you don’t play great, and every time you lose, it’s not always the end of the world, although it did feel like that a little bit on Friday night for everybody there.”
The visit of Phil Parkinson’s side, who were held to a 1-1 draw by a late Preston North End leveller at Deepdale on Saturday, presents City with a chance to return to winning ways at home and perhaps answer a few questions.
“It’s a real opportunity,” Holden continued. “There are two ways of looking at it. You take the couple of days after it, you go through all the emotions, and they come and go all weekend, and then it gives you that opportunity, and we said that to the players.
“They’ve now got this opportunity to show the spirit that we’ve spoken about and the togetherness and the fact that we’ll give everything in every game.
“To be fair to the group, we’ve seen that most games this season, if not every game. It’s their opportunity or our opportunity to go and show what we’re about, what we’re made of.”
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