City are sitting pretty inside the top six after a memorable start to the new season
It’s been quite the start to the new Championship season for Hull City, who occupy fifth place in the Championship after 15 games of the fledgling campaign.
Saturday’s 3-2 win over Portsmouth, which saw City come back from a goal down to claim a fifth win in seven games, lifted the Tigers into the top six for the first time since a period when Liam Rosenior was boss in the 2023/24 campaign.
City’s upturn in fortunes is a far cry from their well-documented struggles of last season, which saw the club battle against relegation, needing help from others to secure their final day survival on goal difference after a 1-1 draw at Portsmouth.
Under Sergej Jakirovic, the Tigers are a different beast and have claimed some big scalps in the early weeks of the season, beating the likes of Southampton, Sheffield United and Leicester City, while becoming the first Tigers side to win at Norwich City in 15 years.
At this stage last season, City had just been beaten 2-1 at home by West Brom in front of just over 20,500 fans. Joao Pedro scored City’s goal, a stunning header from Charlie Hughes’ cross. That result left City with just one home win and 19th in the Championship with 15 points from their 15 games. They’d scored 16 and conceded 20.
After the break, City went on to lose 1-0 at Luton Town with Tim Walter jeered as he walked off the Kenilworth Road playing surface after a dismal display in the late November rain in Bedfordshire. The German would take charge of just one more game, the 2-0 home loss to Sheffield Wednesday, before he lost his job.
Those defeats came amid a run of six straight defeats before Ruben Selles arrived with the Tigers bottom of the table and three points from safety. Pedro would finish the season with just six goals, becoming the top goalscorer. Already this campaign, both Joe Gelhardt and Oli McBurnie have eclipsed that tally.
Fast forward 12 months, and the Tigers are an impressive 10 points better off than at the same stage last season, and they’ve won four more games. Crucially, five of those wins have come at the MKM Stadium, which often sets the tone for the feeling around a club.
While defensively, City under Jakirovic have conceded 24, they’ve also scored 26 and sit fifth in the table with 25 points from their opening 15 games, having won five, drawn one and lost one from their last seven games.
City’s 26 goals scored are already more than half of the pitiful 44 they mustered last term and only 18 behind that target, and they’ve only failed to score in two of those 15 games; those came in two of the first three games. Jakirovic’s men have scored in each of their last 12 outings.
That run includes taking 13 points from a possible 18 since the last international break, form only bettered by leaders Coventry City and Derby County, who both claimed 15.
The Tigers have achieved nothing in terms of promotion, but they have made a terrific start to the Championship season and given themselves a huge platform from which to go on and have a very good season, and above all else, it’s been great fun and put smiles back on faces.
How impressed have you been with City’s start? Have your say in the comments below…
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