Hull City were completely outplayed by promotion rivals Derby County in the first half of tonight’s game and in the end surrendered their unbeaten home record. Derby pushed City down to second and they could fall further after tomorrow’s games.
City started brightly without Dawson and Robertson but Derby soon began to threaten City’s goal. An early warning produced a good save from McGregor but there was no stopping Derby after 15 mins when a good passing move produced a chance for Butterfield who buried it to McGregor’s right. City briefly came back into the game but were caught again just after the half hour when Butterfield again shot past McGregor.
City huffed and puffed to half time and only a superb save from Carson prevented Hernandez scoring on 41 minutes.
In the second half City were comfortably contained except for another good save by Carson from Maloney. He should have scored though and in truth that was the difference between the two sides. City were denied 2 corners by a linesman who just did not take enough notice. It could have been even worse as Ince was put clean through but shot narrowly wide near the end.
Derby deserved to win and City must put it down to experience and move on. Maguire was again prominent and should stay in the side. Huddlestone was back to his lackadaisical best given the ball away when well placed. Some strange substitutions tonight with Aluko replacing centre back Davies and strangest of all Akpom replacing Odubajo. Livermore was then moved into the back four. Surely we would have been better taking Huddlestone and Elmohamady off who had both done very little positive work. Diame looked tired towards the end and had to be replaced by Hayden but it shows again our lack of strength in depth in the forwards.
Three points dropped and hopefully a lesson learned, it just shows how much we missed our captain and leader Michael Dawson.
Tony Atkin 27.11.15.
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