The Tigers held firm to deny Aston Villa and claim a 0-0 draw against the Champions League outfit
John Egan battles with Emiliano Buendia
Hull City claimed their seventh point of the Premier League season as they drew 0-0 with Aston Villa at the MKM Stadium.
The stalemate ensures the Tigers remain unbeaten on their return to the top flight and even more impressively, they haven’t conceded a goal in 270 minutes of football as they continue to prove a tough nut to crack.
City had the best chance of the game, too, with Mo Belloumi striking the woodwork from a wide angle, but it ultimately wasn’t to be for Sergej Jakirovic’s side, with the head coach fielding just two of the six deadline day signings the club made.
There’s a lot of football left to be played over the weekend but City end Saturday night sitting second in the Premier League table.
Before they had a chance to settle in the game, City really could have found themselves behind in the opening couple of minutes with Villa working a chance for Nicolas Jackson. Ian Maatsen advanced behind Lewie Coyle to put the cross in but ultimately, Jackson couldn’t direct his header goalwards.
City grew into the game well, they were being bright and positive on the ball and compact at the back, as we have seen during their opening two Premier League games.
Ultimately, though, Villa still had the better of the opportunities in the first half, with Konstantinos Tzolakis making saves from George Hemmings and Ross Barkley, the latter effort being particularly fine, tipping the midfielder’s effort around the post.
City started to find more joy as the half wore on, with Nobel Mendy and Regan Slater firing off range finders before the lively Belloumi worked Zion Suzuki with a relatively tame effort from range.
The Tigers’ best chance of the first half fell to Slater on the edge of the box after a drive inside from Ryan Giles. He kept the effort down on this occasion but Suzuki got down well to prevent the midfielder from opening the scoring.
Villa had two golden opportunities to open the scoring at the start of the second half and amazingly, both efforts ended up in the South Stand. John McGinn beat the offside trap to latch onto a Jackson knock through and with only the keeper to beat he lifted his effort over the bar.
Emiliano Buendia followed suit after some fine work from Hemmings to beat Coyle and pull the ball back.
Jakirovic made changes with Brooke Norton-Cuffy and Sorba Thomas stepping into the fray and the former nearly made an immediate impact, advancing down the right to force a corner.
And, from the set piece, Belloumi unleashed a stunning curling effort from out wide that beat Suzuki, but crashed off the underside of the bar and away from the Villa goal. That was the effort of the game and ultimately, neither side went close to scoring again until Mohamed-Ali Cho stung the palms of the Villa stopper.
And, with a minute or so left on the clock, McBurnie scuffed a golden opportunity wide. In the end, it was only a point but every Tigers fan in the ground would have taken that at the start of the game.