Hull 0-0 LU Wed 20/09/2023

A definite game of two halves. We bossed the first half and squandered several good opportunities, the most noticeable being Rutter's chance when he just had the keeper to beat - needless to say the Hull keeper, making his debut, was man of the match. A harsh booking for Rodon late in the first half was to prove costly later on.

The second half saw Hull make more of a game of it. We had been camped in the Hull City half for most of the first half and I felt that Hull changed the way they played at half time so that in the second half they took the game to us a bit more. In the first half Hull had been so defensive minded that Messlier was often playing passes from well outside his box. Hull just didn't want to press us high at all. Hull were then given a huge helping hand by the referee who dished out a 2nd yellow card to Rodon which resulted in a red card and us being down to 10 men. The second booking looked a little harsh although his first booking was incredibly harsh - I'm presuming the referee didn't have access to any video replays at half time as I feel sometimes when they realise they have made an error in the first half they try to even it out a bit.

Farke had to shuffle the pack a bit with Piroe the unlucky man to be sacrificed so that we could bring on a defender, Liam Cooper. This seemed to completely de-rail us as we seemed to lose all ability to keep possession and it seemed every clearance or ricochet fell straight to a Hull City player. We looked more panicked than recently at the back but managed to cling on and earn the point. Hull's only real chance coming when one of their players broke free in the area and unselfishly squared the ball for a team mate to tap in, thankfully though the Hull midfielder, Adama Traore, steered his shot onto the post with the goal gaping.

A draw was probably a fair result in the end although if we had have taken one of our first half chances I feel we would have won comfortably. I feel the last few days could be a sign of how our season will be. I fear we won't grind out many 1-0 or 2-1 wins we will either score 3 or 4 or nil. We will play the same way, create the same amount of chances but we seem to lack the clinical edge. Thankfully the defence eeems to be getting stronger. We have hopefully now move away from conceding 2 goals in most games and this gives us a strong platform to build from. I think we will continue to improve and have a few players that haven't really caught fire this season. Hopefully Gnonto's injury isn't serious as I think he in particular hasn't hit the heights yet. He along with Summerville and James are the type of players that can hit a purple patch and scores 4 or 5 goals in a similar amount of matches. Anthony is probably similar and I feel if things click with Rutter he could go a real tear. He was a bit unlucky not to score, I think he put his shot into the right place last night, when one v one, and the keeper did well to get a foot to it. He also created a chance out of nothing for himself when he turned and hit a shot just past the far post. Piroe should hopefully be the metronome scoring goals regularly all season rather than scoring a few then having a drought. There doesn't look to be many goals coming from central midfield with Gray and Ampadu not really looking like troubling the keeper when they shoot but perhaps Kamara and Gruev can add goals.