The Tigers will be the underdogs going into next weekend’s final
John Egan celebrates the win at Millwall on Monday night (Image: Pedro Porru/MB Media/Getty Images)
Hull City’s impressive 2-0 play-off semi-final win over Millwall has generated plenty of excitement ahead of next Saturday’s Wembley final.
Having been written off from the start of the season and even ahead of the second leg at The Den on Monday night, the Tigers are now beginning to attract plenty of backing.
As it stands, City will face Southampton for a place in the Premier League and will go into the game full of confidence, having beaten the Saints both home and away in the regular Championship season.
In fact, Southampton’s last league defeat was at home to the Tigers back in January. The under-fire South Coast club have gone 21 league games unbeaten, having come from behind to beat Middlesbrough in Tuesday night’s controversial second leg at St Mary’s.
One of those is former West Ham Championship promotion-winning skipper Nigel Reo-Coker, who believes Sergej Jakirovic’s side are better set to claim football’s biggest prize and beat Southampton.
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“You can’t read too much in the regular season, but what we’ve seen from the performance of Hull, you can see there’s a togetherness about them. There’s a manager who’s willing to adapt, to see what the opponent’s strengths are and neutralise that strength,” Reo-Coker told CBS.
“I see a very confident Hull that will probably feel that they can get the job done. I favour Hull. I think Southampton are a good team. Player for player, you’d probably say that Southampton have the better players. But this is a play-off final now. It’s not about being the best team.
“The pitch is a lot bigger (the MKM Stadium pitch is the same dimensions as Wembley), and Hull have shown us they can be very organised at the back if they need to be and play counter-attacking football, they can weather the storm.”
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