Hull City come up against their former loanee at Ashton Gate
Hull City head coach Sergej Jakirovic has warned his players to be wary of in-form playmaker Scott Twine when the Tigers come up against the Bristol City ace on Saturday afternoon.
Twine, who had an underwhelming spell at City in the 2023/24 campaign under Liam Rosenior, has three goals and an assist in his opening three Championship games this season, including a brace in the terrific opening day win at Ruben Selles’ Sheffield United.
The 26-year-old also guided in the opener at Derby County last Friday night to continue his fine start, and Jakirovic says his players must guard against the threat posed by Twine, especially from set pieces.
“Particularly strong at home, they play with high intensity at home and they’re very vertical,” Jakirovic told Hull Live. “They’re sprinting all of the time, especially second balls. If they win the second ball, they play forward.
“We must be very, very careful. We have to be careful and, of course, when we are on the ball, we need to make better decisions than we did last Saturday, so we need to be better on the ball.
“They have a few decision makers. For example, Scott Twine. He’s on fire. In every game, he almost scores a goal. He scored the goal; he’s very, very strong from set pieces, so we need to be careful, especially in our first third, about fouls and everything.
“He’s very dangerous. He showed already in the first round against Sheffield United. He scored fantastic goals, so he has that, it’s his quality.”
After the struggles of last weekend which saw illness rip through the dressing room and City subsequently deliver a lacklustre display against Blackburn Rovers, Jakirovic says the tempo and intensity have returned to the players in training this week. He’s eager to see a performance more in line with what he’s come to expect from his side.
“Overall, it was a bad performance from us,” he concluded. “For me, energy was the biggest problem because, after the game, I spoke with the players in the cabin and I asked them ‘How do you feel now?’ They said they felt empty, without power, without any strength. I think this is the main reason, but we will see on Saturday.
“Especially at the beginning of the game (I could see the problems). We were so bad on the ball with decisions with everything. It was a bad day in the office. You can have it a lot of times. This is an opportunity for us to show that it was a bad day for us, and I hope we will show this Saturday.
“I saw this (that the energy is back). Every time you lose the game, it’s a lesson for you, for me as well, and then you’re just waiting for another training day to try to fix things, to improve some things. The energy is now much, much higher than last week.”
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