City are firmly in the race for promotion after clocking up 15 wins from their 28 games so far
Regan Slater celebrates with his teammates after scoring against Swansea City(Image: Lee Keuneke/PA Wire)
Former Hull City promotion-winning skipper Curtis Davies admits the form of his former club has caught him by surprise this season, with the Tigers firmly in the race for promotion.
Saturday’s 2-1 win over Swansea City backed up victories at Southampton and Preston North End in the space of a week, and moved them onto 50 points, surpassing the 49 they took 46 games to achieve last term.
Arguably, alongside Millwall, who are a place below in fifth, City are the surprise package of the season after avoiding relegation on the final day of last season, and then being hit by a transfer fee ban.
City also dispensed with Ruben Selles and brought in Sergej Jakirovic, whom many on British shores were not familiar with, but the turnaround has been spectacular.
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“Yeah, I am totally surprised,” Davies told BetVictor about the Tigers’ season so far. “You know, I think when you speak about Hull City, you go back to when they sacked Liam Rosenior. They sacked him when he finished seventh, even though they wanted a top 10 spot. It was mad. And then they brought in Tim Walter, who wasn’t the one, to be honest, in terms of what they wanted for exciting football. It was more risky football and, in the end, those risks were kind of mitigated by the mistakes that some of the players were making in front of goal in defensive areas.
“They then bring in Ruben Selles to basically save the season. But even then, they stay up on the last day, I was thinking, ‘Right now, they’ll give him a chance to develop the team.’ But they didn’t and sacked him as well. So I didn’t know what was going to happen.
“They brought in Sergej Jakirovic, and I didn’t know a lot about him. Didn’t know about his playing history. Didn’t know anything. But what he has done is make them exciting. You just don’t know what you’re going to get from the group. It could be that they win 5-4, or they could lose 6-3. All I know is they’re conceding lots of goals, and they’re scoring lots of goals.
“For me, scoring lots of goals is excellent, but it can’t be sustained. Listen, if it’s 1-1, I’d rather go for the win and try and get three points and lose the one. I don’t mind that so much, but when you’re sitting there at the top of goals scored, but then quite near the top of the goals conceded, something is going to give one way or the other. Either you’re going to stop scoring goals, or you’ve got to stop conceding them, one or the other.”
City face Blackburn Rovers at Ewood Park at the weekend, aiming to make it four straight wins on the road and maintain the league’s best away record. Should results go their way, they could be just two points off the top two going into next Tuesday night’s game in hand against Watford.
While Coventry City appear to have a firm grip on top place, the second spot appears up for grabs, and because of that, Davies admits promotion is very much on.
“That being said, they had a really good win at Southampton and then beat Preston too. As I said, with the state of the league in the way it is, why couldn’t they do it?”
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