Positive point for Grant McCann after Hull City let victory slip at Birmingham City

The Tigers were genuine play-off contenders before Christmas, but now find themselves fighting for their lives at the wrong end of the Championship.

The statistics which tell the story of the disintegration of their season are both eye-catching and damning in equal measure.

Grant McCann’s team’s league record this year reads: one win – all the way back to New Year’s Day – 10 losses and three draws.

Thirteen Championship outings without a victory. Three points taken from a possible 39 on offer.

Not even the suspension of 2019-20 due to coronavirus could arrest their slide. A three-month break afforded injury-ravaged City the opportunity to re-group, draw a line under their poor run and start what was effectively a nine-game mini-season.

Their first fixture back ended in a demoralising 1-0 home defeat to relegation rivals Charlton Athletic and saw the East Yorkshiremen slip into the drop zone.

Seven days later, they led Birmingham City 2-0 at half-time, and were 3-2 up until the 88th minute, yet still their winless run goes on.

The picture would have looked rosier had they managed to hang on against the Blues, but all things considered, there is, at present, very little to be positive about from a Tigers perspective.

But it is positivity that is required if Hull are to have any chance of arresting their slump and staying in the division, because dwelling on how badly they have been performing is not going to help them turn the corner.

McCann admitted that Saturday’s 3-3 draw at St Andrew’s felt “like a defeat” after his players conceded such a late equaliser, but he went on to insist that there was plenty that he could take out of their performance.

Indeed, he needs to find positives ahead of Thursday’s crunch game with fellow strugglers Middlesbrough, a contest that really has the feel of being one that City have to come out on top in.

“It’s a lost opportunity,” said McCann. “From being 2-0 up to come away with a 3-3 draw, it does feel like a defeat but we’ve got to take the positives out of it into Middlesbrough.

“The positives I’ll take out of today are seeing Reece Burke returning, James Scott scoring his first goal, Herbie Kane scoring his first goal, seeing Leo returning.

“We had the majority of the team performing. The energy was good, the two centre-halves looked happy together. Everything seemed to click. We should’ve been 3-0 or 4-0 up at half-time. That gives us something for the last seven games.

“We’ve had a really long break and I’m not feeling like I did pre-lockdown when we had 11 or 12 injuries. We felt as though the world was on our shoulders.

“Now I’m feeling more confident. We’ve come away from home and scored three goals. We could’ve scored five or six. I feel a lot better.”

McCann would surely have felt on top of the world had his charges managed to see the job through at St Andrew’s, but once again their defensive fragility proved to be their undoing.

Josh Magennis’s second-minute header from Callum Elder’s inviting free-kick delivery broke the deadlock before James Scott nodded home Leo Da Silva Lopes’s cross to double the Hull advantage.

The visitors looked good value for their half-time lead, one which could have been greater had Barnsley loanee Mallik Wilks managed to convert one of two glorious one-on-one opportunities.

City were punished for their lack of a ruthless edge as a much-improved Birmingham halved the deficit less than two minutes after the resumption through Gary Gardner, then drew level on the hour-mark when Dan Crowley headed home.

Undeterred, Hull reclaimed the intiative after 68 minutes as Herbie Kane cleverly swept a 20-yard free-kick under the wall and into the bottom corner, though there was to be a sting in the tail.

Gardner, already on a yellow card and perhaps lucky to escape further sanction following an off-the-ball clash with Elder six minutes earlier, was inexplicably afforded time and space to nod home a late equaliser with the Tigers defence almost statuesque – not for the first time.

“I felt the early goal in the second half put them in the ascendency a little bit,” added McCann.

“We conceded off a shot on the edge of the box, which is disappointing, and then the other two we conceded are just criminal – people making a free run into the box and not being tracked.

“For how good we were first half, we were the polar opposite in the second.”

Birmingham City: Camp, Colin, Dean, Clarke-Salter (Gordon 87), Pedersen; Crowley, Kieftenbeld (Bela 46), Gary Gardner, Bellingham; Jutkiewicz, Hogan. Unused substitutes: Reid, Harding, Trueman, Boyd-Munce, Burke, Stirk, Concannon.

Hull City: Long, Pennington, Burke, De Wijs, Elder; Da Silva Lopes (Honeyman 70), Batty, Kane (Stewart 77); Wilks (Bowler 67), Magennis (Eaves 67), Scott (Lewis-Potter 67). Unused substitutes: Tafazolli, Toral, Ingram, MacDonald.

Referee: D Whitestone (Northamptonshire).

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