Hull City head coach Sergej Jakirovic has apologised to supporters after the Tigers produced what he described as the worst performance of his tenure at Fulham on Saturday.
Despite only losing 1-0 against the bottom side on the banks of the Thames, City were battered from the first whistle until the last, and in truth, the Cottagers should have had more than just Alex Iwobi’s 33rd-minute goal to show for their dominance.
So poor were City, they failed to have a single shot on target in the game and to make matters worse, lost summer signing Robinho Vaz to a nasty Ryan Sessegnon challenge in stoppage time, which saw the Fulham man sent off.
For the fourth away game in a row, City were backed by a sold-out 2,700 away following, who all remained inside the Putney End until full-time to see their side off into the dressing rooms.
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There haven’t been many occasions since Jakirovic took charge in June 2025 where he’s felt the need to apologise for a performance, but that was the case in the capital and promised a response against Brentford next Sunday afternoon.
“I want to thank them for their support,” he told Hull Live. “They were excellent. We were very poor on the pitch, but sometimes you cannot control it, it’s not going on, you’re vicious, I can say like this, but thanks to them. We were very poor, disappointing, and I hope we will change this next week.”
Jakirovic was not shy in giving a brutal assessment of his team’s performance and says his squad must shoulder the criticism. He says when they watch it back, they’ll see again how poor they were.
“They were better; they had much more experience than we did. In every challenge, they were stronger than we were. It was men against boys. In every challenge, they ate us. It’s very simple to analyse, you don’t have a chance with this level of performance. They must take it because if you are realistic, if you watch the game again, and they will watch, so you will see how poor you were. It’s very simple like I said. They are professions.”
City created nothing all afternoon, failing to muster a single attempt on target, with the City boss highlighting a lack of quality when it came to decision-making and execution.
“Fulham were very strong at the back, and also when we had the opportunity to create something, to make better decisions, so we had a lack of this. For example, Oli McBurnie made a lot of mistakes in his passing. It’s not normal for him. It’s a bad day at the office, and that was the reason.”
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