Often Partisan

Toothless Tigers? Hull City Preview

After the aborted away trip to Barnsley Blues are back at home to face Nick Barmby’s Hull City side. It’s a tough clash for Blues with Hull riding high in the Championship, and with two of the meanest defences in the league on show maybe goals will be at a premium.

Hull City

Hull have no new injury and suspension worries and are thus expected to name an unchanged squad to face Blues at St Andrews, with Matt Fryatt set to start up top again after scoring in their 3-0 win at the weekend over Bristol City. On loan Arsenal keeper Vito Mannone should start between the sticks and Manchester United winger Robbie Brady is also expected to feature.

Hull are in a good vein of form in the league, having won four of their last six games – although it has to be taken into account that they have played five of their last six league games at home and that they lost 1-0 in the FA Cup to League Two side Crawley Town. Hull City have the meanest away defence in the league, conceding just 12 goals in fourteen games although they have only scored 12 away from home.

Birmingham City

Guirane N’Daw definitely misses out with the knock he picked up against Pompey and Marlon King and Nikola Zigic are both doubtful for this fixture. Nathan Redmond has to be pushing for a start on the left and should both King and Zigic fail fitness tests then Elliott could be the man to play behind Rooney in a lone striker role. This would open a slot on the bench for one of the kids – as without N’Daw, King and Zigic Blues have just fifteen fully fit senior pros (including Redmond and Mutch).

Having not played at the weekend Blues have had more of a break than Hull City from playing; however the fixtures now stack up with four games in eleven days. Blues will be looking to pick up points to keep up the pressure on the top two whilst opening a gap on the chasing pack; there is a full programme of league fixtures to be played and a defeat could see Blues fall back away from promotion hopes.

This a game that for me has 0-0 written all over it; Blues have one fully fit striker and Hull City don’t score away from home; and neither team concedes many. Thankfully it won’t be as cold as it has been but I’m not expecting a game to warm the cockles of the heart. If Blues can avoid defeat and injury, I’ll take the result.

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11 Responses to “Toothless Tigers? Hull City Preview”

  • Steve says:

    Makes a change to hear an informed column from an oposition fanzine. Thanks Tigers fan in peace

  • parkp says:

    CH says there are more worries than just Zigic and King. Im a little worried about tonight, although we can take heart from the performance at Wolves where Zigic and King were missing. Hopefully some loan signings will come in this week because Blues could get caught out at the worst possible time and fingers crossed, it wont be tonight.

  • chris says:

    a draw will be a good result with all the injuries we have and the useless board who are only giving Chris a limited loan fund.
    i believe his quotes “of needing the right type ” is to hide the fact he hasn’t the funds he needs.
    our season could fall away if he is not able to bring in at least 3 players to cope with the run-in asap.
    they need promotion more than the fans do yet they are not giving him the tools to do it.
    sicknote Zigic doesn’t help.

  • Graham says:

    Does anyone know what exactly is wrong with Zigic, for someone he’s height and fitness he don’t half get injured easily. It has to be pretty serious to keep him out for this long.

  • parkp says:

    I think Blues are close to bringing in at least one player this week. The frustration with Zigic is the fact he scored 4 goals at Leeds and he has not played since! Just when you thought the big guy was about to tear up the championship.

  • BIG says:

    im sure Sir Zigic shares your frustrations.

    show some respect, hes our Talismanic cup final goal scorer.

  • BluePenguin 76 says:

    Its going to be a tough game tonight without Ziggy and Marlon. This is a big one in terms of promotion and not having the players to bring in from the squad may prove costly as the season draws to a close. It Could be the difference between Automatic promotion and the playoffs or even worse just missing out on a top six berth.

    If I where Chris Hughton i’d play Elliot behind Rooney and try and get Burke and Redmond to bomb on and create as much havoc from the wings as possible!.

    That said, i ‘m realistic and Im going for a 1-1 draw.Which i’d be more than happy with,however CH has shocked me before and i’d think win isnt totally out of the question.

    KRO

  • denning says:

    Any chance of former Blue Dele Adebola playing?

  • BarmbyArmyAnt says:

    Tough game, I can’t see many goals in it, Birmingham are unbeaten at home, but we (Hull) have a nasty knack of stopping records like that, Nottingham Forest were unbeaten in 40+ last season and we came away with 3 points, with two of the meanest defences in the League, this has 0-0 or a scrappy 1-0 either way written all over it, I’ll be there tonight, hope for a good game
    UTT *Barmby Army!*

  • skareggae72 says:

    With the top 2 meeting someone is GUARANTEED to drop pts so the potential prize tonight is lucrative.Our limited options up front is worrying,CH will realise that & we can hopefully get the big guys forward for set-pieces,my feeling is either Caldwell or Curtis can hopefully make the difference and scratch out a winning goal.


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