Hull City 1
Queens Park Rangers 3
Attendance: 21,928
by Sam Hawcroft
Pictures courtesy of Hull City
Hull City’s faltering play-offs bid took another blow with a limp and disjointed display against a QPR side who were indifferent form – yet given free rein to punish the Tigers’ lack of cutting edge.
Despite enjoying the lion’s share of possession for long spells, City rarely did enough with it and, despite levelling at an opportune time towards the end the first half, they never really kicked on in what became an increasingly flat and frustrating contest.
The Tigers initially looked the more commanding of the two sides, with QPR struggling to get out of their own half in the early stages.
Inside three minutes Liam Millar had the first sight of goal, fizzing a 20-yard effort just wide of the right post after being played in by Joe Gelhardt on the left.
Millar tried his luck again in the eighth minute, but his effort was comfortably dealt with by keeper Joe Walsh at the near post.
Then, almost out of nothing, the visitors nearly snatched the lead on the counter. City were outnumbered at the back and it took brave, well-timed goalkeeping from Ivor Pandur to come out and meet Koki Saito and claim the ball. A split-second later and he could easily have been injured, or the ball could have been in the net.
Yu Hirakawa then made a clever run down the right and found Gelhardt, but he headed well over when he might have done better.
As the half wore on, the game drifted off the boil. QPR began to see more of the ball without really threatening the final third, but it was their first corner in the 20th minute that would prove decisive.
It had an unfortunate sense of déjà vu about it, as it was almost a carbon copy of Pedro Neto’s second during Friday’s 4-0 FA Cup defeat by Chelsea.
Harvey Vale’s delivery carried a dangerous curl and, while it looked like it might have crept in anyway, it took a touch off Paddy McNair on its way into the net, the defender left with the unwanted own goal as City fell behind.
To their credit, the Tigers did respond with a spell of pressure around the half-hour mark, but QPR coped relatively comfortably while still looking capable of exploiting the spaces at the other end. Vale shot straight at Pandur in the 36th minute in a move that hinted at further danger.
City’s equaliser came from persistence rather than polish. Hirakawa produced a brilliant run to the byline and drilled a cross into the box. It was not the cleanest delivery, but QPR made a mess of clearing and Gelhardt was on hand to toe-poke home from a couple of yards, the ball seeming to take an age to trickle over the line.
There was still time before the break for a foul on Millar just outside the area in the 41st minute, but Hirakawa’s central free kick struck the wall and a potential QPR break was halted when Millar hauled down Richard Kone, rugby league style, and picked up the inevitable booking for taking one for the team.
City began the second half brightly enough, winning a flurry of early corners inside the opening five minutes. From the third, Walsh did well to turn away a deflected effort from McNair as the hosts threatened to build some momentum.
However, that momentum never truly materialised. In the 57th minute, play was halted for an injury to Hirakawa and he left the field gingerly, replaced by Kieran Dowell, receiving warm applause as he slowly made his way past the South and West stands. From then on it went from bad to worse for the Tigers.
Just after the hour mark, another defensive wobble – stemming from a poor clearance by Pandur – allowed Kone a sight of goal, but he shot over and was offside in any case. It was, however, a warning that the Tigers failed to heed.
Further changes arrived in the 67th minute, with John Lundstram replacing Millar and Lewis Koumas coming on for Amir Hadžiahmetović, but the quality of the contest only seemed to deteriorate as it dragged on.
City saw plenty of the ball without incision, while QPR looked the more threatening whenever they broke. In the 72nd minute Vale’s ball into Rayan Kolli was missed by Pandur and fortunately looped over the bar for a goal kick in another nervy moment.
A 12.30pm kick-off feel lingered over proceedings, with the Tigers looking off the pace, like they’d had a heavy Friday night and got up too early – and the atmosphere in the stands grew increasingly flat as the game slipped away from them.
After the electric atmosphere at Thursday’s World Club Challenge, won in dramatic fashion by Hull KR, there has been plenty of discussion about why City home matches at the MKM can feel so flat by comparison, but afternoons like this provide part of the answer.
Yes, the crowd were quiet at times, and there is a broader, football-wide debate about how modern stadiums, scheduling and the changing nature of the game have altered atmospheres across the country.
But support is, more often than not, reactive. When the fare on the pitch is laboured, low on intensity and woefully short on quality, as it was today, fans surely can’t be fully blamed for not generating sustained noise.
Anyway, back to the football (if we must). Pandur batted away a Nicolas Madsen free kick in the 75th minute and from the resulting corner there was a growing sense that, if a winner was coming, it would be for the visitors.
Lewie Coyle was then replaced by Cody Drameh and Regan Slater by Kyle Joseph with just over 10 minutes remaining, but again, the changes failed to spark any real response.
Instead, it was QPR who found the decisive moment. In the 84th minute substitute Daniel Bennie was afforded space around 20 yards out and produced a superb solo strike that flew into the back of the net, prompting a visible exodus from all areas of the home support.
Joseph did put the ball in the net just before the 90-minute mark, but the referee correctly ruled that the free kick from Gelhardt had not been taken from the right place. There was only a clutch of very young fans in the Upper West who screamed at full pitch as though it was actually a goal. Bless them – at least they had something to cheer, albeit briefly.
The closing stages summed up the afternoon. A mistake by Dowell almost let Kone in again and he should have made more of a one-on-one, opting for a chip rather than a more decisive finish. Dowell’s body language was telling as he could only sit on the turf and watch what should have been a certain third.
By the time eight minutes of added time were signalled, the Tigers looked completely ragged. It got worse still when Kone was allowed to run down the left virtually unchallenged and calmly beat Pandur to add a third, the boos ringing out as the stadium rapidly emptied.
There is still plenty of football to be played, and it might be a tad early to question whether the wheels have come off the Tigers’ play-off push. We know the talent and the drive is there, but performances like this will need to be arrested quickly if City’s season is not to drift at the worst possible moment.