By Jack Watson
That was more like it. Hull triumphed in a 0-2 victory over Birmingham City on the road, which was a much-needed win after a four game winless drought. I still think there was a bit of sloppiness: making some loose passes in dangerous positions and not dealing with the ball properly at the back. However, we were able to stay solid for the majority of the game and push for the three points, earning our second clean sheet of the season. Hopefully this is a confidence booster, which will help us go back to winning ways.
I am not a fan of what has happened with Birmingham this season; they lost just three in 11 games under Wayne Rooney’s predecessor, John Eustace, and were sitting in sixth position, which is where any team is battling for. However, ludicrously, they sacked him a fortnight ago. I do not understand why they did this and I think Birmingham will struggle. For us, we have not won in four games, with two draws and two losses, one of which was a last minute goal from Southampton on Saturday to snatch the three points. We were looking for a response, which set the game up to be entertaining.
We are back to winning ways and the team who brought back the three points had three changes to our late defeat to Southampton on Saturday: Adama Traore for Jason Lokilo, Sean McLoughlin for Cyrus Christie, who seemed to struggle in the previous game, and captain Lewie Coyle, who had a fantastic game, replaced Ruben Vinagre. In a 3-4-3 formation, that meant our starting line-up was as follows: Ryan Allsop between the sticks; Sean McLoughin, Alfie Jones and Jacob Greaves holding the fort, with Lewie Coyle as Right-wing back; Jean Seri, Tyler Morton and Adama Traore anchoring the middle and Liam Delap, Jaden Philogene and Scott Twine up-front.
As expected, Birmingham were the side who started on the front-foot and looked like a very threatening side. I think we anticipated this before the game; a new manager's first game at home, the team is always looking to impress. However, we dealt with them well, soaked up the pressure and it was us who took the early lead. In the 12th minute, Birmingham were passing it at the back, but Longelo’s back pass to the keeper was short of pace and allowed an onrushing Delap to win the ball before Ruddy. He calmly steered past him and slid it into the back of the net. A nice bit of luck, which is what we need, and a brilliant start to the game.
The Blues were not going to allow us to keep this lead and had a period of pure dominance, but they did not do much with the ball (just like us in previous games). Bacuna, one of their better players, fired twice over the bar and their only shot on target during the half came in the last minute of extra time; Bacuna swung in the ball from a free-kick which was weighted perfectly for Kevin Long to try and loop the ball over Allsop. Fortunately, it was not much of a threat and he had it covered. We could have doubled our lead in the 24th minute when Twine found himself one-on-one with Ruddy, but he snuffed out the danger after a poor attempt by the striker 8 yards out.
The first half ended 0-1, which is a scoreline I feel like I have not seen for a long time.
Again, at the beginning of the second period, Birmingham came out energetic and eager to find an equaliser–they certainly made our back four work for the first 15 minutes. During this period, we blocked shots from Bacuna and Dembele, which were the only dangerous efforts they had. Then, it was our turn to show what we can do and controlled the game exquisitely: our passing was sublime; the right substitutes were made at the right time; the defence were unbreakable and we were starting to do a lot more with the ball–we managed 12 shots throughout the game, with 56% possession, which is great to see.
Towards the latter stages of the game, the hosts began to drop off and they did not make it difficult for us; they gave away the ball cheaply and could not create an attack. Inevitably, we finally doubled our lead, which killed the game off. In the 73rd minute, a strong spell of possession allowed us to work our way from the back and shred through Birmingham. The final pass was made by Scott Twine on the left to find Philogene, who worked hard to cut across field, shrug off his men and shoot from range, which flew past the defenders and Ruddy before finding the back of the net. Lovely.
Overall, I was impressed with the performance and the effort from a young squad to play superbly against a team with some experienced players. Liam’s tactics were spot on, his decision making was on point and the team's response was great. The relationship between manager and team was robust and flawless. Our next game is against Preston North End on Saturday, who had an exceptional start to the season, but are now dropping off. This is a great opportunity to get another win under our name. We just need this type of performance to be consistent and work from there.
