It has happened again; we play superbly for a period of time–we even score–and then we allow the opponents to come back into the game like someone has flicked a switch. It is frustrating and I have seen this scoreline three times this season: all of them have been at least two hours away from home. I would not say that we played bad, but we woke up the home crowd when we allowed them to equalise. Big mistake. Also, we did not manage to keep Chuba Akpom quiet too, which would have been my priority if I was playing against him.
I have now been to eleven away games and I have only seen one win and there is only one more left, against Luton, who are another playoff team. Great. At the beginning of the season I would have been happy to go to at least one game, let alone eleven, but it has not been enjoyable for me. I love the club, but they give me heartache.
According to LiveScore, we were in, again, a 4-4-2 formation with Karl Darlow in goal; Jacob Greaves, Lewie Coyle, Sean McLoughlin and Callum Elder as the back four; Dimitrios Pelkas, Regan Slater, Jean Seri and Allahyar Sayyadmanesh as the middle four and Harry Vaughan and Adama Traore were up front. One change from our outing against Blackburn on the weekend and it was great to see Vaughan in the starting eleven again. In my opinion, he should always start. We are still without Oscar Estupinan and Aaron Connolly, who were supposed to be back. I like those players, but if they are going to spend most of their time injured then something has to be done. Nonetheless, we are still without Alfie Jones, our bench looked like this: Ozan Tufan; Greg Docherty; Ryan Woods; Xavier Simons; Alfie Taylor; Ryan Longman and Matt Ingram.
I have no complaints with how we played in the first half; it was quick and good football, which Boro could not keep up with. We were pinging the ball around effectively and most of our players could hold it for a long time. It was like I was watching a completely different team. The hosts struggled to get the ball and when they did, we won it back or they would make some sloppy passes, which was unusual to see for a team who are 4th. All we needed to do was keep calm and carry on with what we were doing.
Then, in the 41st minute, after hogging the ball for so long we took a well earned lead; this derived from a well worked corner, which was taken by Traore. The ball was swung into the box perfectly and Sayyadmanesh jumped early and headed the ball into the back of the net. I was not expecting this when I set off from Hull and we could have gone on to score more. Even our fans, over 600 of us, were out singing a crowd of over 24,900. What was happening? But, we did not know what was coming in the next 45 minutes.
Boro made a double substitution, which sparked some life into the team; however, it was us who had the first chance to increase our unexpected lead; Lewie Coyle received the ball at the half way line and made a solo run up to the goal, but he shot just outside of the box and his effort went wide. Then, our spell came to an end.
We dropped off and became sloppy, which I was expecting. We got the ball taken from us whenever we had it, our passes were not reaching the players, we were failing to clear the ball and our back line became too open. This woke up the crowd, which boosted the players morale. Could we keep our composure and stop them from breaking our back line? No, we could not.
In the 55th minute, Akpom made a pass through to Jones on the right, he used his speed and delivered a cross at the edge of the box, which reached Hackney, who was able to smash it into the back of the net. But, it did not stop there.
Two minutes later they took the lead and it felt like Sunderland all over again; Archer controlled the ball well from a great pass, outmuscled McLoughlin and slotted in a perfect low finish. To be honest, Darlow should have gotten to the ball first, but he stayed stationary and relied on Sean to deal with it; however, he should have just dealt with it himself. That was the first mistake I have seen from Darlow.
What happened? I have no idea, but my night was made even worse. In the 60th minute, Akpom got his goal and he has now broken the record of scoring in the most consecutive home games–this used to belong to former Hull player, Jarrod Bowen. Jones made a low cross into the box and Akpom powered a sweet shot into the net, sending the home crowd crazy and our corner into dismal.
After this, we gave up and we were lucky to not concede more. We could not form an attack like we could in the first period and our back line became like straw. I was so pleased to hear the whistle blow and all of our fans stayed to clap the players, which was brilliant to see. We did not perform badly, we just got outplayed by a better side, who won't be in this league next season.
I am not prepared for the next day, where I will be plodding along to school with depression and not enough sleep. Also, I am not looking forward to all of the glory supporters at my school tearing into me. Anyway, I made the trip and it was a great experience.
We can not go down anymore so we are not playing for anything, however, I would like to see us finish in a good way. We have three games remaining: Watford, at home, Swansea, at home, and Luton, away. I will be going to all of these and I am looking forward to them. Let’s get as many points as we can and head into the new season with confidence.