Boro 1 – 0 Hull

Middlesbrough Hull City
Assombalonga 25′
Possession
Shots
On target
Corners
Fouls
39%
15
4
4
7
Possession
Shots
On target
Corners
Fouls
61%
15
4
5
10

Stumbling Britt seals Boro victory

Redcar Red reports on a return to winning ways against Hull at the Riverside…

Nigel Adkins has turned Hull around since his arrival from looking down the table to looking up. Considering the state the club is in off the pitch with open discord between owners and fans his achievements are worthy of considerable respect. This week marks exactly five years from when the Allam’s put the Club up for sale following a rebranding disaster not helped two years later with a controversial “membership” scheme. Boro fans however were just hoping that despite Adkin’s hard work TP didn’t show too much respect to his opponents as has sometimes been his want this season.

A win for either side would keep faint Play Off hopes alive, defeat or even a draw would surely condemn either or both clubs to another year in the Championship. Mind you there was always the Villa vs Bristol game, which could suddenly throw an unexpected lifeline to a victor. Adkins side were looking to extend a winning streak to four consecutive games whereas Boro have just managed to end one of their worst runs in recent memory. Grosicki and Bowen would be the stand out danger men in the Tigers side while Boro still haven’t quite worked that one out yet from the start of their season but possibly Fletcher could be the one in form.

Hull’s last win at the Riverside was in the FA Cup back in 2014 when a rusty Dimi struggled to get down to Hull’s opener from which we never recovered. Hull’s last league victory on Teesside was at Ayresome Park so there was that niggle that today could be a “Typical Boro” day especially if the visitors took an early lead and Boro heads went down.

There were bright blue skies and sunshine at Kick Off but with a very wintry wind blowing in from the Tees towards the South Stand. Wing and Friend were out for the season for Boro as both Managers went with same again from their respective mid-week victories. The game started with Shotton and Saville as wing backs with Fry, Fint and Ayala as a back three. Hull immediately got at Boro, pushing and probing keeping Boro pegged well back and forcing a series of hurried scrappy defensive passes that put us in trouble. We were looking very unconvincing and after a couple of minutes Pugh fed Lichaj down our right and cut back a cross into the Boro box where a scuffed Frazier Campbell shot on the edge of the 6-yard box saved our blushes. That was a very telling moment, had it gone in the Riverside could have turned septic instantly.

The opening ten minutes looked ominous as we couldn’t get out of our half to mount any assaults. Heavy clouds started covering that welcome and warming sunlight previously covering the Riverside, darkening the mood almost as much as the feeling from the stands started to reflect misplaced Boro passes and a series of nervy rearward passing. Besic was lively and looking for the ball but he was both enthralling and frustrating in equal measure. Once in possession he would make things tick but as well as showing composure (sometimes to the point where he slowed all Boro momentum) he would circle himself three times causing problems and uncertainty both with those behind and ahead of him. Fortunately, as the game progressed, he did start to become the playmaker, making things tick positively for Boro in the centre of the park.

The atmosphere tellingly was fairly flat around the Stadium and that knife edge feeling looked like it was affecting Boro with every miscued pass or recycling movement to retain possession earning sighs and moans rather than distinct outright groans. The 200 or so die-hards that remain in the back of the decimated North Stand were trying their best to get behind the team but shortage of numbers and the poor fayre on offer didn’t enthuse many to join in.

Those onerous doom-laden clouds were broken when a hoofed ball (or well weighted 40-yard pass) up to Britt saw him give chase but only to find himself offside. Moments later he had an effort that ended up in said clouds as things were not clicking at all for Boro. The opening twenty minutes saw Saville turned inside out, struggling to compose himself as it was clear he isn’t a left back nor a wing back. To add further problems our attempts to break out were thwarted down the left because of the lack of pace from the Northern Ireland International. Score goals he may have done at Millwall but he was never renowned as quick or silky skilled and looked like a fish out of water facing Grosicki and Bowen. On the opposite flank Shotton was lively and making runs but nobody was seemingly alert enough to see him in acres of space.

We looked like total strangers who had no idea of who was supposed to be where and any synergy that you would normally expect at this stage of the season was totally absent. Britt was bustling but struggled to hold his shorts up let alone the ball, giving it away cheaply a few times while danger man Grosicki tested Randolph. Things were not looking very convincing and a Hull goal would have started the simmering witch-hunt.

Approaching the half hour mark and the former goal machine that is Aden Flint headed a great opportunity wide of the target as the groans were mounting. Then as the ball was poorly played out by McGregor, Besic pounced and reacted best twice in quick succession to nick the ball inside the Hull half to find Shotton (FINALLY!!!!!) who ran towards the edge of the Hull box and played in Fletcher who crossed across the gaping Hull goal where a stumbling and off balance Britt closing in hit or stubbed the ball and into the net. 1-0 and it has to be said that despite the fact we were now starting to get back into it Hull could genuinely feel aggrieved after their early onslaught. Ironic chants of “we’ve scored a goal, we’ve scored a goal, we’ve scored a goal, we’ve scored a goal, we’ve scored a goal” rang around the Riverside.

Just after the restart and with Hull still reeling Fletcher again sent a lovely tempting and inviting ball into the box for Howson to tee himself up on the far side only for the hapless Saville to collide and nick it off him for what would have been a certain goal. Having endured a torrid time as left wing back TP had meanwhile reshuffled his pack to play a 4-1-4-1, with Fletcher now wide left and Saville in a more familiar midfield role alongside Besic and Howson going to a back four with Shotton and Fry right and left backs meant that Saville would have otherwise been nowhere near the opposition 6-yard box. Mikel was meanwhile being kept very busy just in front of his defence and behind the mercurial Besic which at times was just as well.

Five minutes later Bowen looked to be pulling the sides level but for a sliding Ayala challenge to close off his route to goal. Boro were now enjoying their best period of the game when Fletcher fluffed his lines and then Britt spun around and hit the crossbar as Boro seemed determined to make very hard work of an afternoon and it remained 1-0 at half time.

Both sides remained unchanged after the interval except that Grosicki had swapped wings to try his luck on the same side he had in the first except now in the opposite direction facing the South Stand. Adkins tactical tuning seemed to have worked as the opening stages were all Hull as they started the second half in the same way they had the first. A draw was of no value to either side and for the loser their season would be effectively reduced to mundanely completing fixtures safe in the knowledge that they would finish in an upper table position.

That inevitability was enough to see Hull keep pressuring and Boro defending deep sometimes desperate and sometimes comical and sometimes comically desperate or should that have been desperately comical? The corner count was now building in Hull’s favour and we looked to be out of ideas in how to get the ball to stick up the pitch. There was no pace or energy on our flanks and Britt battled but with little finesse and both he and Fletcher seemed to have swapped Dubbin for Silicone on their boots.

I was surprised at why Downing was omitted from starting now that his contract is resolved especially with Friend crocked, we looked unbalanced and disjointed on the left. As Eric Morecambe might have remarked we had all the right players just not necessarily in the correct order. As the second half wore on things didn’t improve, in fact they got even worse, a lot worse. As Ayala challenged Campbell he was now laid out motionless, requiring lengthy treatment and having to leave the pitch on a stretcher with his leg encased in a splint. That necessitated another swap around as TP now went with Shotton, Flint and Fry as centre backs and Howson and Saville ominously again as wing backs. Clayts had come on for Ayala filling a vacated midfield slot.

Sitting back with Besic the only capable outlet we were still scrapping and battling as Hull continually upped the pressure and both Campbell and Bowen somehow missed sitters that were even more nailed on than those spurned by Boro in the first half. A Howson ball up to Fletcher saw McGregor block the rare Boro half chance and then Campbell who had headed wide a minute earlier now sliced a shot just as wide with Boro leading a charmed existence.

Britt then had another opportunity with a Boro break to seal the three points when he closed in on the advancing McGregor only needing him to slot it past the Hull Keeper but he incredibly squared it two yards ahead of the advancing but marked Fletcher who had no chance of ever reaching it. The North Stand language was choice to put it mildly but I would wager much cleaner than that from the Boro technical area.

Two minutes later as if to rub salt in the Britt inflicted wounds the away fans were hyped up momentarily as the ball seemed to be going in but somehow cleared by Mikel. Miraculously the score remained 1-0 as Adkins must have been convinced there was a Gypsy curse on Hull’s fate at the Riverside. As it happens it was Ali’s 60th Birthday so maybe we did have a little bit of help somewhere because to all intents and purposes Hull should have been level if indeed not a few goals to the good.

Recognising the lack of pace and that nothing was sticking upfield TP made a double substitution with Downing and Tav coming on for Besic and Fletcher. For me Downing should have started but taking Besic off seemed strange as he was our only creator and a constant threat to Hull and needed an outlet to work with of the sort that Downing and Tav could offer. Up until now Saville had had a poor game by his own standards and yet bizarrely after Downing went on the right side and Tav left in front of Saville he upped his game and put some real telling challenges in including one where he won the ball, burst out of defence up the left wing all by himself and managed to hold the ball up until he eventually was bundled over to win a decision. At this stage of the afternoon there was little in the way of organisation or tactics from Boro, it was now a case of dig in, hold on and scrap for every ball as though your life depended on it.

Seven minutes added time came up on the fourth officials board for all six substitutions and Ayala’s injury. It seemed light to me as it did Nigel Adkins but Boro were now clinging desperately to those three precious points and nobody in Red was complaining about the shortfall. Pushing forward Hull exposed themselves as Britt picked up on a mistake in the Hull box but incredibly yet again missed his target. As someone remarked near me “it’s a good job he was off balance when he scored that goal otherwise would have missed that as well”.

Battered and bruised the Boro defence were hanging on, desperate for the whistle made worse knowing Britt could and should have had three or four goals to his name to ease the anxiety. Then more hearts in mouth time as a Grosicki free kick (after a reckless Clayton challenge earned him a yellow card) was tipped onto the bar by Randolph and when it looked to be in, booted clear by Flint with the Hull players appealing it was over the line. The whistle went and Hull’s season was now all but over whilst Boro’s still stubbornly continues, finding themselves a point behind Bristol who lost at Villa but have a game in hand.

MOM for Boro could have been Randolph for two great saves, or Howson for being switched around but competently adapting all afternoon or Besic for his buzzing up until he went off but for me it was Dael Fry who stood defiantly whether at Left Back or Centre Back and stepped up a gear when Ayala went off.

If you wish to leave a comment about Redcar Red’s match report please return to the Week 37 discussion page