Hull City 3 v Birmingham City 0 - EFL Championship

Saturday 21st December 2019
SkyBet EFL Championship
at the KCOM Stadium
Hull City (1) 3
Tom Eaves 45+1,
Kamil Grosicki 58,
Keane Lewis-Potter 88
Birmingham City (0) 0
Attendance: 11,334 (inc. 1,082 away fans)
Point & hope photo gallery: click HERE

Hull City:
Long, Lichaj, de Wijs, Burke, Eaves (Lewis-Potter 75), Grosicki (Honeyman 80), Bowler (Batty 53) Bowen, Elder, Irvine, Da Silva Lopes.
Unused subs - Ingram (GK), Tafazolli, Kingsley, Pennington.
Birmingham City:
Trueman, Pedersen, Colin, Jutkiewicz, Bela, Dean, McEachran (Crowley, 69), Villalba (Montero, 64), Bellingham (54), Sunjic, Bajrami.
Unused subs - Camp (GK), Maghoma, G Gardner, Davis.

Hull have now won their last six home league matches against Birmingham, a run that stretches back to December 2011.
Having started the afternoon just one place and two points ahead of Blues in the Championship table, the Tigers set about rubbishing my prediction that this would be a close run thing from the off. And although the hosts didn't actually score their opening goal until first half stoppage time, they were good value for their interval lead, having peppered the visitors area with a succession of corners and crosses that were just begging for a final incisive touch, during the opening exchanges.

Prior to today, the last time that these two sides met at the KCOM Stadium, back in March, Hull won 2-0, following a 3-3 draw at St. Andrew's, earlier last term.
And the season previous to that, though Blues chalked up a 3-0 win over today's hosts on home turf, they also crashed to a 6-1 away defeat in Kingston upon Hull, in what was Lee Carsley's last game at the helm, a job that he held in a caretaker capacity before Steve Cotterill took over the managers job from him full time. It was a result that left Blues teetering on the Championship brink, in 22nd place.
Carsley had temporarily stepped into the breach, to fill the vacancy left by the dismissal of Harry Redknapp, who himself had taken over from Gianfranco Zola, who'd only been in the job for five months after replacing Gary Rowett in December 2016.

Since Steve Cotterill was punted by the Blues hierarchy, Garry Monk and now Pep Clotet (initially as an interim part-time head coach) have also filled the hot seat (ejector seat?) at St. Andrew's.
That's six managers of one description or another in thirty months... there's never a dull moment at Birmingham City since they replaced the manager's office door with a revolving one.
Rumours (and that is all that they were) abounded over the past week or so, that Coventry City's manager: Mark Robins, was in the frame to take over from Clotet, but Blues club owners have seemingly responded to the media gossip and kiboshed that suggestion, by officially naming the Spaniard as the first-team coach and removing the 'interim caretaker' part from his job title.

Though, to be honest, you can never really predict anything with any kind of certainty, regarding what is on the cards at St. Andrew's, with this current lot orchestrating things.
Robins already has a seat in the home dug-out at St. Andrew's, because that is where his 'Cov' side currently play their home games, in League One, while they are exiled, once again, from their own ground, in their home city.
But, regardless of the fake-news speculation, peddled by the usual suspects, who must genuinely struggle to fill a few column inches (most of the time), Clotet was still in charge of things when he took Thursday's pre-match press conference and he was still at large on the touchline at the KCOM Stadium this afternoon.

There is really no need whatsoever for any of this kind of media stoked bullshit, because, the truth is always more curious than the most far fetched of fiction at Birmingham City.
As regards Clotet, in all honesty, with just one win in their last nine matches, some of the players aren't exactly demonstrating that they are prepared to put in any extra effort to enhance his reputation or future job prospects. If such a poor run of form was to continue over the holiday season, one must begin to wonder how insecure the peg that the Spaniards coaches jacket is hung on might actually be.

Paco Herrera, Clotet's assistant, has returned to his homeland on compassionate leave to attend to a family matter and has effectively left Blues because he isn't expected to return to the fold, and James Beattie is still seeing out the remainder of his contract in exile, either on gardening leave or filling in his time taking on scouting duties. Beattie did a great job in nurturing Che Adams talent and helping him to achieve great things last season, in his role as the specialist coach for attacking play. Yet, with the team crying out for goals this term, he's been ostracised and pushed out of the equation.

The match referee: Anthony Backhouse, taking charge of his first ever Championship fixture, didn't exactly endear himself to the Blues faithful with two decisions that might have changed the course of the game. In the first instance, he waved away a penalty appeal and merely awarded Grant McCann's host side a goal-kick instead, when Jeremie Bela broke into the Hull area, after exchanging passes with Fran Villabla, only for him to be knocked off balance with a nudge from behind by Leo da Silva Lopes.

Mr Backhouse also allowed play to continue during the build up to Hull's second goal, even though Lukas Jutkiewicz had clearly been fouled just inside the home side's half when they had gained possession.

But... across the 90+4 minutes, the fact that Birmingham weren't very good at all today (I'm being polite and a tad generous here) and Hull applied themselves right across the park and wanted it more, were the main contributing factors to the visitors extended run of losses in the East Riding of Yorkshire.

The Hull captain: Eric Lichaj got away with murder against Jutkiewicz today, but the big front-man can dish out as much of the rough stuff as he gets and Blues must surely know by now that they can't rely on Championship officials giving them the rub of the green. Well, apart from when Kristian Pedersen tripped Jarrad Bowen as he he cut into Blues penalty area and the resulting free-kick was given a yard outside the box, in spite of a bloody great big slide mark impaling the pitch marking and showing exactly where the challenge actually took place. Phew! 

Some last ditch defending in first half stoppage time, saw Geraldo Bajrami putting the ball out of play at the expense of a corner kick, which Kamil Grosicki floated towards the near post, where Tom Eaves ghosted in and directed a header just inside the left hand post. It needs to be asked: how the bloody hell does somebody the size of Eaves, wearing a amber shirt, picked out under the stadium lights, sneak into such a position unnoticed?

Grosicki was pivotal to most of the good things that Hull did today and almost inevitably, he scored their second goal, just before the hour mark, when the Tigers countered quickly, following the aforementioned unpunished foul on Jutkiewicz, and surged forward straight down the middle, where the Polish international ran onto a slide-rule pass from Bowen before lifting the ball over the advancing Blues keeper Connal Trueman, who had been left woefully exposed by his defence, who appeared to have clocked off early for Christmas. The extra training in the morning might get them to buck their ideas up a bit.

Keane Lewis-Potter netted twice after coming on off the bench late in the game, the first one saw the eighteen year old 'local lad made good', get in on Harlee Dean's blind side before finishing well, to claim his second goal in a matter of weeks for his hometown club, but his stoppage time strike was disallowed.

FT: Hull City 3 v Birmingham City 0

A fair result all told. Blues were very poor on the day> And, what with this being the season of goodwill and all that, virtually sat back and invited Hull to come at them and have a party, which they gleefully accepted. 

The best team won, the second best, err... came second.

Happy Xmas to you, one and all... enjoy your festive football.