Hull City (A) reaction/report
Last Friday wasn't 'welcome to the Championship'. This game was though. A cold, brutal dose of reality was doused on a Wednesday that looked every bit as behind as we are after the summer we've had.
The English football season opener against Southampton may have been the sharp sound of an alarm clock alerting us to that ‘we’re not in Kansas League One any more’. Today was a bucket of ice cold water right between the eyes, because Hull is the sort of yard stick we would ideally be measuring ourselves against. Any pretense that this season will be a chase for top six, as the club’s legal owner insisted in June, most likely died an ugly death in those last 45 minutes.
There had been warning signs in the first half too, Hull dominating the game in the middle 15 minutes, but we had given a good account of ourselves especially out of possession.
We had even taken the lead that we were then unfortunate to have cancelled out in injury time, when Hull’s most impactful player and captain Coyle made contact with Gregory’s elbow (if the referee adjudged any sort of sinister intent it would’ve been a straight red, surely?).
Hull at first seemed to struggle to figure out how to deal with our very compressed - both vertically and horizontally - 4-4-2 out of possession with Delgado on the left side of midfield and Paterson on the right side, with the latter coming more inside when we were on the ball.
At the risk of getting way too lofty and ahead of myself the way there were only around 30 yards from our front two to our back four of four centrebacks was almost reminiscent of the great Arrigo Sacchi AC Milan sides.
That extreme degree of compression vertically was coupled with a near-identical extreme degree of compression horizontally with those four centrebacks almost all positioned as such at times. The side shuffling was also extreme with our right most player almost in the centre circle when Hull had the ball on the left side and vice versa.
Being so close to each other out of possession enabled us to stop Hull from playing their way through us centrally and was the foundation we used to stand very high on them when they started play from the back.
Their ‘keeper Ingram was in a pickle more than once and their defence gave off all the same vibes our defenders did at this point last season, when Darren Moore also insisted on ‘playing out from the back’ as he ‘wanted to play that way’.
Highlighted pre-match by eagle eyed Tom Hunter (if you’re not subscribed to his Substack already, get on it!) this dogmatic approach was a vulnerability for us to take advantage of the same way Norwich did last weekend to run out the most dominant winners of the season’s first match day as per quality of chances but for Watford in their rout of QPR (Expected Goals, 2.73 vs. 0.39).
Our application was everything you would want from an away team: Tenacious, aggressive but meassured, working as a unit and desperate to progress quickly once the ball had been won.
In the opening 15 minutes Hull’s only threat came when Barry Bannan had a very ‘this isn’t League One, son’ moment, robbed of the ball taking too many touches and too long to pass it one close to his own box, but iceman Vasquez comfortably held the resultant effort.
We had some good patterns of movement with rotations and quick, short passes opening up space in front of us to attack and but for more quality in the final pass could’ve offered even more.
It may have taken Hull 15 minutes to realise the obvious frailty we had - that we were so narrow that most of the area of the East Riding was open on the side the ball wasn’t in - but then Coyle, the right wing back, stayed higher and hugged the byline and kept being given the ball.
That initiated a sustained period of Hull pressure where we at times looked tentative defending crosses and set pieces into the box. Like us, though, they seemed to lack that final bit of quality in the pass and coordinated movement. On loan Liam Delap, for instance, would probably have made a better run onto Coyle’s whipped cross on 30 minutes with the merest of connection needed to score.
Hull were emboldened and had moved higher up the pitch. After too much last ditch defending and clearing of the ball we got more to grips with it on 33 minutes when Delgado received on the left in his own half on the turn and spun away from two Hull players, broke up the pitch and released Windass on the left, who cut inside and clipped a cross too far ahead of a Gregory in lots of space.
Exactly the sort of quick transition from defence to attack that Xisco Muñoz wants to see. Two minutes later quicker and tighter movement of the ball when we won it in our own third found Paterson on the right where he was fouled. With everyone asleep the free kick quickly released Iorfa down the right, where he squared expertly for the onrushing Delgado to turn home in front of two defenders for the opener.
Hull had two good chances - both on the left side of our defence - before Gregory was unfortunate to concede a penalty that levelled the score.
A fair scoreline, all things considered, but still disappointing.
Bannan had been much more tactically diligent and better at being ‘just another midfielder’ rather than sucked towards the ball insisting on making everything happen that first half - something he humbly admits he is working hard at adjusting to - but ruled was out by injury and replaced by Will Vaulks at half time.
We had another good spell of play on 54 minutes that gave us a glimpse of Xisco Ball: Cool as a cat Devis Vasquez didn’t get as flustered as his Hull counterpart with a Hull forward bearing down on him and clipped the ball expertly into the centre circle past the entirety of Hull’s pressing pack, where Windass could receive and initiate another transition.
With these encouraging green shots showing it was deflating to see us concede a second. And way too easily too, which isn’t to take anything away from the exquisite finish that were as close to the bar-post joint as you can get without hitting it.
Hull almost rugby attacked, simply passing to a player free to the left of them when someone came out from defence towards them. Delgado looked like a player accidentally controlled on a game of FIFA when he bizarely just jogged on instead of providing the press from the side rather than our defenders having to come out of position.
That moment showed how far we can feel away from the level that not Southampton, but Hull City are at. It also felt like a byproduct of the very stationary Vaulks - alas often looking out of depth and behind the pace when Hull upped the tempo - replacing Bannan in central midfield, where we seemed to defend reactively rather than, as in the first half, proactively. Not trying to get ahead of the pace of Hull’s game to nick the ball, but trying to keep up with it to keep it out.
Vaulks had some nice touches - one diagonal floated pass on 62 minutes especially - but he perhaps exemplifies the ‘too good for League One, not good enough for the Championship’ trap we could all too easily find ourselves in, wasting possession and not being able to get close to combating Hull’s movement and passes.
It suddenly felt like the Wednesday of old, from before Moore ‘fixed us’ mentally, and we were outplayed for their third goal. It looked like two teams who were a division apart. Delgado again nowhere to be seen defensively.
The fourth? Well, let’s not talk about that, which I’m sure Michael Ihiekwe would also prefer not to.
4-1 up Hull stood off more and with Byers - interestingly with the captain’s armband at this point - as the conductor and he stopped the creeping in of ‘League One ball’ we, in our tiredness (mentally as much as physically), had resorted to: Punt and press, force chances, not creating chances.
An exquisite inside pass from Byers taking out two Hull players that still left a lot of work for Michael Smith, who showed he is likely to be the best finisher at the club still with his goal (his placement and finishing turning a 1 in 4 chance into a 4 in 5 one).
Trying to take the disappointment out of the game, maybe today just demonstrated that we are at least several weeks behind most other teams in the division: Delayed three weeks by Play-Offs; four weeks over the execution of a managerial sacking that had already been on the agenda in late May; and another two weeks hiring an unemployed manager.
Being charitable to the players and manager today could just be a function of exactly that lack of preparation whereas Hull’s Rosenior have been in the job since last November and had a full pre-season with his squad.
It makes the spectre of the next game, against a ‘as Championship as they come’ side in Preston (finishing 12th, 13th and 13th the last three seasons), loom a lot larger though.
A narrow loss with the same game image as the first half would’ve been seen as disappointing, but a step in the right direction implementing both a raft of new players and playing style. As it was, the manner in which we disintegrated does call into question our path towards a more energetic, attacking style of football, certainly as a way to the ‘
The main worry about us - both among fans and pundits - has been ‘where will the goals come from?’ And despite scoring three in the first two, we’ve done so from a total of 1.1 xG. Creating a quality of chances that an average player would score from once every other game is hard to square with survival.
The lowest a team surviving in the second tier has scored since 1992 is 36 goals. Even the three teams relegated in all those 22 seasons have averaged exactly one goal scored per game.
Goals scored don’t necessarily win you games, though, and conceding six goals in two games is the more obvious worry. Whereas in League One we could get away with letting a chance slip now - and still post the most clean sheets in our history - in this division it’s so far three big chances conceded (as per FotMob), three goals conceded.
Before we let the easy impulse for gloom reign as easily as it seemed like our players did do when that third went in, there are positives to take from today. Building blocks for what our Wednesday will look like.
Even given half a season, a full pre-season, and full, unmitigated reign over transfer policy implementing as drastic a change in playing style as we are would have met challenges and obstacles.
We saw a team committed more to a higher press today. The main issue now seems to be having the stamina to doing it for longer, being more concentrated and doing it more effectively: We committed ten fouls in Hull’s half today, but tackled and won possession there just twice all game.
We need to find a way of ‘resting’ so we can do that and not get pushed so far back we struggle to break a spell of pressure against us.
We also saw a team where players trusted each other more to do their tasks, which is something Barry Bannan alluded to being a challenge for someone like him in an illuminating interview with the Sheffield Star a week ago. There were a lot of remonstrating with each other, but it wasn’t flailing arms of frustration or guilt, but more ‘this is your task, do it, and I’ll do mine’. That may be a leap, considering the vantage point watching on a tv gives you, but it certainly was the sense you got.
It will sound quaint to highlight a ‘keeper’s performance, when we’ve just conceded four goals. But Devis Vasquez showed why Muñoz will have wanted to recruit him today especially on the ball (when the defenders actually passed the ball to him and not past him of course!). If and when we come up against teams less willing to press it opens the opportunity for Vasquez to move up into a position as an auxiliary defender at the base of build up with a better medium to long delivery than any of the starting defenders on the basis of today.
That would get more out of the aerial prowess we do have - and still have at this level, winning as many aerial duels as Hull in their half today - as well and add to the number of modes of attack we have. And as a release valve when we need the aforementioned rest from a sustained spell of high pressing.
The reality check that today provided will hopefully mean we, as fans, are more patient and more forgiving of our team when we play at Hillsborough than booing the players in a first round League Cup game at half time indicates.
Because it’s likely we’ll have to endure some more hardship. After Preston home and Cardiff away - both very much in the winnable column when you’re looking to get to the 48-51 points that half the teams finishing 21st in the past 22 seasons had - we face a gruelling run of fixtures at least when you look at the pre-season odds of the teams: Of the six matches from September 2nd to October 3rd we play the 2nd, 4th, 5th, 7th and 9th ranked teams by division winners odds (Leeds, Middlesbrough, Ipswich, West Bromwich, Sunderland):
We’re not a normal promoted side, because of the chaotic summer we’ve endured. Ipswich and Plymouth have won 10 of the first 12 available points, so it’s not that the leap to the Championship is necessarily insurmountable. But when you actively move yourself away from the bar it gets all that harder to get up above it.
There’s nothing we can do about that now (other than learn, but it alas has the hallmarks of being a recurring feature in life under the club’s current legal owner).
So we need to show the players that they still have our backing as every point won could prove precious in our bid for survival. And survival is what we’re aiming for, in case anyone were in doubt. We’re a long way off being able to realistically aim for ‘consolidation’ which infers a degree of certainty in the season’s outcome that looks like being beyond us.
Once we get to October we should see more of a settled team, approach and coordination when playing. And that is exactly when our fixture list softens:
From October 7th and until New Year’s Day only three of the 16 opponents are ranked in the top third of the division by odds of winning the division (Watford, Leicester, Norwich).
In that period of 16 games we play all the bottom five teams by winner’s odds: Huddersfield, Plymouth, Rotherham, Birmingham, QPR, Cardiff.
So there are many reasons to try and remain patient.