{"id":14738,"date":"2026-11-06T20:15:57","date_gmt":"2026-11-06T20:15:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/?p=14738"},"modified":"2026-11-06T20:15:57","modified_gmt":"2026-11-06T20:15:57","slug":"tiger-taming-at-the-emirates","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/?p=14738","title":{"rendered":"Tiger Taming at the Emirates"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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The Dead Tiger, engraved by H.Merke after an original design by Captain T. Williamson<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

And so to the Stadium of Stone, where there be tigers, come Saturday afternoon.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Our visitors started the season burning bright on their return to the top flight, beating the Red Mancs and Coventry, but their symmetry has become less fearful. Last weekend\u2019s 2-2 home draw with fellow returnees Ipswich was Hull City\u2019s seventh successive league game without a win (five draws and two losses). After nine games, they sit in 11th on 11 points. That, though, is their second-best start to a PL campaign, and it easily defies the consensus among Predictathon players that the Tigers would soon return whence they came.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Our first encounter with Hull City came in the FA Cup First Round in January 1908. It had not been long since the Hull Daily Mail\u2019s columnist, Athleo, had launched a campaign in 1905, urging the club\u2019s fans to adopt the \u2018battle-cry\u2019 of \u2018the Tigers\u2019, inspired by the team\u2019s amber-and-black striped shirts. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

A tiger did not appear on the club badge until 1947. There was no crest at all on Hull\u2019s shirts until 1935, when a badge featuring the three crowns from Kingston upon Hull\u2019s coat of arms was introduced as part of a switch to playing in the city\u2019s civic colours, blue and white. The unpopular decision was reversed the following season.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Back to 1908. We drew 0-0 in Plumstead, with the First Division side (us) failing to convert multiple chances against Second Division visitors. In the replay, the Daily Mirror\u2019s expectation that \u2018the Arsenal can hardly play so badly as they did last Saturday\u2019 proved wildly off the mark. We were mauled 4-1, having gone 3-0 behind within the first quarter of an hour. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

A historical footnote: that was Billy Garbutt\u2019s final game for Woolwich Arsenal, after which he would go on to manage in Italy during the 1920s and 1930s. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Garbutt\u2019s death in 1964 passed almost unnoticed in England. In Italy, among the glowing tributes, was one from Vittorio Pozzo, who coached Italy\u2019s winning World Cup teams in 1934 and 1938. Garbutt, he said, was \u2019the most important man in the history of Italian football\u2019. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Like Johnny Madden, mentioned by Trev in his excellent preview of our Slavia Prague game, Garbutt was a prophet without honour in his own country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Occasional company<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Saturday\u2019s game will be Hull\u2019s 200th Premier League game, but only its 11th against us. We beat them in seven of those, drew twice and lost once.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Matches between the two clubs have been relatively few and far between. Saturday\u2019s will be the first since February 2017. The two clubs never met in the old First Division. In four Second Division matches between 1913 and 1915, we won two, drew one and lost one. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Throw in nine FA Cup matches and three League Cup ties, and our overall record is 18 wins, five draws and three losses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sergej Jakirovi\u0107<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The tall, 49-year-old Sergej Jakirovi\u0107 is in his second season as head coach at Hull, having won league and cup titles in the Balkans, most recently in Croatia with Dinamo Zagreb. He arrived via Kayserispor in Turkey after a 9-2 Champions League thrashing by Bayern Munich cost him his job in Zagreb. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

As a player, he earned five caps as a central defender for Bosnia-Herzegovina and played for 20 clubs in Croatia, Bulgaria and Austria. Although born in Mostar, now in Bosnia-Herzegovina, he was raised in Metkovi\u0107, 40 kilometres up the road in what is now Croatia, where his father played for one of the town\u2019s clubs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the Premier League, he has abandoned the 4-2-3-1, which often looked more like a 4-3-3 and won him promotion via the play-offs last season. Instead, he has adopted the more defensively solid 5-4-1, a realistic assessment of what a newly promoted club needs to survive in the Premier League \u2014 although he reverted to 4-3-3 in the second half of the Ipswich game after falling behind and says Hull won\u2019t beat us by sitting back in a 5-4-1. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

His teams are known for disciplined, compact defensive organisation, comfort with the opposition having the majority of possession (they were 19th in the Championship for possession last season) and aggressive counter-pressing after losing the ball, a tactic employed against us with some success by Slavia Prague, Leeds and Brighton. The goals come from fast counter-attacks and set pieces.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jakirovi\u0107 brought his coaching staff from Dinamo Zagreb and Kayserispor to drill his approach into his new charges. The club backed him with its recruitment, buying direct forwards who will run and shoot, wingers who will carry the ball upfield quickly, and defenders whose mentality is as important as their playing ability.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The opposition<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Young Greece international Konstantinos Tzolakis, a \u20ac23 million summer signing from Olympiacos and the joint most expensive part of Hull\u2019s \u20ac176 million rebuild for life in the Premier League, has started his career as a glove-butler in the top flight of English football in fine form.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In front of him will be three big, physical centre-backs, Semi Ajaya, once of this parish and who has since won 53 caps for Nigeria, the veteran Ireland international John Egan, and one of the two young centre-backs bought in the summer, 21-year-old Senegal international Nobel Mendy, who cost \u20ac23 million from Rayo Vallecano, and 18-year-old Lucas Harrington, a \u20ac15 million acquisition from KSE\u2019s Colorado Rapids in the MLS.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To flank them, Jakirovi\u0107 will likely perm two from another one formerly of this parish, England U-21 right back, Brooke Norton-Cuffy, a summer arrival from Genoa (where Garbutt made his name), former England U-20 defender Ryan Giles, and club captain Lewie Coyle, who is Hull-born but was raised in Leeds\u2019s youth system. Ex-Newcastle man Matt Targett, another summer arrival, has been kept out of the side by an ankle injury.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yet another summer arrival, Tim Iroegbunam, the ex-Everton 23-year-old, is likely to be partnered in central midfield by Regan Slater, as Hidemasa Morita, who anchors Japan\u2019s midfield and was signed from Sporting on a free in the summer, was injured in training midweek. Slater was bought from Sheffield United\u2019s U-23s four and a half years ago.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Algeria international Mo Belloumi, who is the club\u2019s leading goal scorer and assist-maker this season, will provide width on the right. On the left, Sweden international Elliot Stroud, signed from Mj\u00e4llby in the summer for \u20ac2.5 million, has recently displaced Wales international Sorba Thomas, who arrived from Stoke in the summer for \u20ac8.8 million.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Up front, Oli McBurnie serves as the target for the long balls that spring Hull\u2019s direct counter-attacks. Picked up on a free at the start of last season from Las Palmas, McBurnie brings more than 100 games of PL experience with Sheffield United and Swansea, and the mix of patience and efficiency with which he waited until the 95th minute of last season\u2019s play-off final to score the only goal of the game \u2014 although, for Scotland, he is so patient that he has yet to score in 20 appearances.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For the bench, Jakirovi\u0107 has  Joe Gelhardt, who cost \u20ac7.6 million in the summer from Leeds, and another striker, 19-year-old Frenchman Robinio Vaz, who is on loan from AS Roma. Like Thomas, Vaz has been dropped to the bench of late, with Jakirovi\u0107 saying neither is fit enough to start. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mohamed-Ali Cho, bought from Nice for \u20ac15 million in the summer, has been providing fresh legs on the right wing. Former France U-21 international DM Lucas Gourna-Douath is also available after missing four games due to a calf injury. However, the go-to sub in central midfield, veteran Matt Crooks, is suspended after accumulating five yellow cards.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Defender Charlie Hughes, forward Ilyas Ansah and midfielder Eliot Matazo are all off-games.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Arsenal<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

We return home after three away games in seven days, having shown the weariness of travellers in the second half in Prague midweek. Nonetheless, I doubt that Arteta will give Declan Rice an extra day off to unpack, even though this might be an ideal game for a Guimar\u00e3es-MLS pairing. Thus:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Raya<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Timber, Konsa, Gabriel, Calafiori<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rice, Guimar\u00e3es<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Madueke, \u00d8degaard, Tzolis<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Havertz<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Like Daniel Farke at Leeds, Jakirovi\u0107 has drilled his outfit into a well-organised, high-intensity and physical side. He will likely copy Farke\u2019s blueprint that caused us to huff and puff for two-thirds of the match against Leeds last month. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

We will start this game as heavy favourites.  It might not be a pretty watch for much of the time unless we can get an early goal, but we should run out at least 2-0 winners.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Enjoy the game, \u2018Holics, near and far.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

And so to the Stadium of Stone, where there be tigers, come Saturday afternoon. Our visitors started the season burning bright on their return to the top flight, beating the Red Mancs and Coventry, but their symmetry has become less fearful. Last weekend\u2019s 2-2 home draw with fellow returnees Ipswich was Hull City\u2019s seventh successive […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":16,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[5],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14738"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/16"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=14738"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14738\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14747,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14738\/revisions\/14747"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=14738"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=14738"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=14738"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}