Hull City’s players revelled in Saturday’s 2-0 triumph over Manchester United at the MKM Stadium, securing their first-ever Premier League success against the Old Trafford giants.
First-half goals from Semi Ajayi and debutant Nobel Mendy fired City into dreamland to give them a comfortable, deserved success on opening day.
Ryan Giles was given Man of the Match, and he spoke to HullLive after the game, while Coyle, Ajayi, Slater and Crooks all spoke to TNT Sports to give their thoughts on a memorable day at the MKM Stadium.
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Lewie Coyle
“I think the noise speaks for itself,” he said. “Probably before we all went to bed last night, we couldn’t have dreamt it any better. To win 2-0 at home against Manchester United, of course, it’ll be a shock to a lot of people.
“I’m not saying that’s exactly how I thought it would go, but this team’s got something special in terms of character, resilience, and we know what we’re doing, we know what we are, we know we’re gonna get chances on the break.
You’re against a fantastic side, which we are going to be most weeks, and we know that’s the minimum it’s gonna take to give yourselves a chance, and yeah, just so proud of the boys, I think, for what we achieved last year.
“I said to them in the huddle before, we’re not just here to make the numbers up. We’re here to stay in this division, and what an incredible start for the boys.”
Semi Ajayi
“It was amazing, it capped off a really good start that we had,” Ajai said. “We had a couple of chances that we didn’t manage to take, but obviously that one got us in the lead, and we had something to build on, and I’m happy we went on to get the three points.
“I’m not going to lie, I thought he (Oli McBurnie) scored as well, so we were celebrating, and he asked ‘Did you score’, and I said I think so. But I didn’t really care if it was either of us in the moment, but I was buzzing it was ultimately my goal.
“We’re not really focused on all of the outside noise; we’re only focused on what’s going on in the changing room. We believe in ourselves, and we’ll back ourselves to do our best every single game, and with performances like this, hopefully, we’ll have a very good season.”
Regan Slater
“Yeah, it’s massive,” Slater said. “You can see it from the crowd. Unfortunately, League One was a COVID season, but you can see what it means to everyone.
“The place was rocking like it was the back end of last season as well, so it’s nice to see that he’s carried on, and also that we picked up from where we left off. It was a really nice, solid performance from us to go and build on now.
“Definitely (it makes you proud to play in the Premier League), especially when you look over and see your family in the crowd. Everything that they’ve done to help me get here as well, it’s unbelievable.”
Matt Crooks
“All my family are from Manchester, we’ve been season ticket holders for over 40 years,” he said. “We’ve still got them to this day, so it’s a special feeling for me, but it’s a great result for the club, and it’s a good start to the Premier League season.
“A lot of people probably didn’t see us last year in the Championship. We probably didn’t have much of the ball last year in the Championship either, so it wasn’t really any different to our style that we played last year.
“We wanted it to be compact. We knew they’d wanna play through the middle, so we kind of blocked that up, and I thought we did our jobs well, and obviously we took our chances in the first half. Second half, we probably could have had a couple of opportunities, probably my fault for giving the ball away, but we’ve hung on in there and got the job done.”
Ryan Giles
“Yeah, brilliant, a fantastic day for the football club, delighted for everybody,” Giles said. “I’m hoping that sends a bit of a message out to the rest of the league and everybody watching that we’re not just here to make the numbers up. We know it’s going to be tough, but there’s a good core in that dressing room with brilliant togetherness and brilliant resilience. I feel like if we can just stick to that, we’ll go toe to toe with a lot of teams this year.”
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