City have seve games left to ensure they can extend their season
Hull City remain firmly in the play-off race(Image: Greig Cowie/Shutterstock)
Former Chelsea, Tranmere Rovers and Everton stalwart Pat Nevin admits the play-offs can be the most wonderful thing in the world, but equally, they’re horrendous.
City’s 3-1 win over Sheffield Wednesday last Saturday was the perfect response to a crushing defeat at West Brom a week earlier, and was crucial given Southampton and Wrexham, both below them in sixth and seventh, won, to keep the pressure on.
Sergej Jakirovic’s men remain fifth with only seven games of the season to go, but the Tigers remain on course to take their place in the end-of-season play-offs, provided they keep churning out results starting with the Good Friday trip to struggling Oxford United.
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Despite three defeats in four before overcoming Wednesday, City are not out of the automatic promotion conversation just yet, with the gap to Middlesbrough in second standing at only five points.
“It has been a while for Hull City, but that league in some ways hasn’t changed for decades,” Nevin told talkSPORTBET Casino. “It is horrendously hard to get out of. It’s just unbelievably hard. And then you add on the playoffs as well. And here’s the bad news, they’ll probably get play-offs, won’t they?
“I’ve played in play-offs four times. Three times at Tranmere Rovers. Later in my career, we were in the play-offs and we were a fabulous team. We were beating Premier League teams in the cup, and we were flying. Top goalscorers. We had three internationals up front. We were a good team, right? We were alright.
“Could we make that last step? It’s horrendous. It’s absolutely one of the most difficult. People say it’s the most difficult league to get out of in the world, and I think it is.
“Especially when you get down to those play-offs, because in some ways there’s a little bit that you think you’d rather be the bottom club in the play-offs, so that you think, ‘well, we shouldn’t be here anyway’, and the pressure’s off.
“Because if you’re the top club, say you’re third or whatever, you don’t get promotion, or you just miss out on promotion, you’re on a downer. And it doesn’t always work that way, but you think, God, do we have to go again? And it’s hard when you’ve got so close, because certainly one time at the Rovers we actually had it in our grasp to win the league.
“To absolutely win, to go and win it, and we blew it in the last six games. So I’ve been there, but I’ve also been there when we’ve won the league to get up to the top league, when it was my first season at Chelsea.
“We won the Championship, or League Two as it was then, but the Championship, and it is the most brilliant, joyous, phenomenal buzz. The perfect feeling. Will Hull do it? I’m afraid they’ve got a 25 per cent chance.
“Exactly that. All the other teams that are going to be in those play-offs have exactly the same odds. That play-off is like a cup final, or two cup finals, obviously. Yeah, 25 per cent chance, that’s it.”
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