By Jack Watson
Another cracking win. Today Hull beat Preston North End to earn back-to-back wins and our third clean sheet of the season. Preston did not bring much to us, to be honest, and they were very lucky that we managed to score just the one goal. Also, it was lovely to win at home in-front of a rocking, sold out MKM Stadium. Hopefully this is the confidence booster that we need.
Heading into this game I was optimistic as we had a great result at the St Andrews Stadium on Wednesday night and Preston were (and still are) on a little losing streak. This match could not have come at a better time; if it were earlier in the season when Preston were doing well, this scoreline would have been different. With luck, this is the start to an endless run.
Liam Rosenior did not make any changes to the starting eleven, save for Jason Lokilo replacing Tyler Morton, who picked up a slight injury on Wednesday night–hopefully it is nothing major. That meant, in a 4-2-3-1 formation, we lined up as follows: Ryan Allsop between the sticks; Lewie Coyle, Alfie Jones, Sean McLoughlin and Jacob Greaves at the back; Jean Seri and Adama Traore were just below them and Jason Lokilo, Scott Twine and Jaden Philogene were above Liam Delap, who was up-front on his own. Again, we were not playing with an official left-back and we are yet to introduce James Furlong. We are doing well without one, but when we begin to pick up injuries at the back, we need reinforcements.
The first 45 minutes were a bit dry and it was very possession based football from us; however, this was enjoyable to watch as we did not make any sloppy mistakes and controlled the ball exquisitely. Some chances even came from this new style of play. Nonetheless, Philogene and Twine made a bright start with efforts each, which did not test the keeper and went wide. Preston were on hold for most of the half, mostly due to having to make two early substitutions, which, I think, took the flare out of them. They did not test our keeper much and spent most of the half diving in our box and complaining at the referee for not giving a penalty. They need to understand it is not an opera, it is a football match.
Other than a couple of free-kicks just outside of the box, all going over the bar, and those few chances, we did not create much. Until, in extra time of the half. Seri won the ball in the middle of the park, picked out Philogene making a run and threaded a perfect ball through Preston’s defence landing perfectly for him. Philogene found himself one-on-one with the keeper, however, instead of shooting, he decided to take that extra touch, over complicate it and run it out of play at the dead ball line. He did not even get his shot off!
The half ended goalless, but I was impressed with what I saw.
The second period was more entertaining and it was yet again Philogene who had the first slice of the pie. In the 53rd minute, he made a run on the left-wing, cut inside at pace, beat his man and shot towards the bottom-right corner. But, a fine save from Woodman snuffed out the danger. The visitors did have their chances quite early on, especially in the 65th minute; neat interplay between Ched Evans and Browne on the right gave Liam Millar a clear goal-scoring opportunity. He did everything right, however, super Adama Traore was there with an excellent block to deny him.
Then, just as Preston were having a good spell, we finally scored in style. In the 68th minute, Philogene, again, made a darting run on the left before cutting in between Brad Potts and Jordan Storey. He ran into a pocket of space in the box, dummied Preston’s players and slotted it towards the right-hand post, which put it in the back of the net. Another fantastic goal followed by a great celebration, in which he ran into my stand. What a relief.
For the remainder of the half Preston went for broke and kept knocking on our door, which we kept sealed for the full match. But, they did nearly equalise towards the end when substitute Evans was teed up on the left by Browne, but his strike was comfortably saved by Allsop. Rosenior made some substitutions: Greg Docherty for Jason Lokilo; Cyrus Christie for Adama Traore and Ruben Vinagre for Jaden Philogene, which killed off the match and we took the three points.
As it stands, we have boosted up to 6th and we should have all the confidence, determination and energy to go to West Bromwich next week, which I wont be going to, and add to our winning streak. I really do not want a result like last year, which was 5-2 to the home side. We desperately needed a response after five games without a win at home and we certainly did that. Let’s keep going.
