Potters too good for lacklustre Tigers

Pictures by Hull City

Hull City 0 - 2 Stoke City

Sky Bet Championship

By Sam Hawcroft, Hull City correspondent

In the middle of all the fevered takeover talk and amateur private helicopter-spotting was this pedestrian 2-0 defeat by a well-organised Stoke City side – in another game selected for television but featuring few of the thrills and spills of last week’s FA Cup exit at the hands of Everton.

The Potters’ line-up featured no fewer than four ex-Tigers – bona fide heroes Sam Clucas and James Chester… plus Tom Ince and Josh Tymon. Meanwhile, Tom Huddlestone made the Tigers’ starting 11, and notably absent were Josh Magennis, having just left the club for Wigan, and the injured Mallik Wilks.

The first real moment of danger for the Tigers came after just four minutes.

Clucas laid on a great through-ball to D’Margio Wright-Phillips, making his league debut just a week after his professional debut in the FA Cup last week. City keeper Nathan Baxter committed to coming well out of his area, and managed to smother the ball without handling it. (As an aside… if Jacob Greaves, son of Mark, makes you feel old, then it’s perhaps best not to dwell too much on the fact that Wright-Phillips is Ian Wright’s grandson.)

In the ninth minute, Stoke’s clearance from George Honeyman’s cross fell to Greg Docherty, but he shot well wide from 18 yards. Moments later City were in trouble again at the other end, with the advancing Jacob Brown beating Baxter, leaving Greaves and Sean McLoughlin to clear. Ince shot well over from the resulting corner.

It was end to end as Docherty was booked for legging up Wright-Phillips deep in the Tigers’ half in the 17th minute, but the free-kick was snuffed out and it was back up to the North Stand for a City corner in front of the 641 Stoke fans.

Stoke had the edge, though, and were looking far more dangerous on the break. Just five minutes later, they went ahead. Clucas picked out Wright-Phillips with a beautifully floated long-range cross into the box, and he made no mistake with a free header from eight yards out.

The Potters continued to carve open City’s defence, and in the 31st minute Baxter did very well to acrobatically tip over a header from Phil Jagielka (Stoke’s brand-new signing from Derby – and, aged 39, old enough to be Wright-Phillips’s dad).

City finished the half with a decent spell of possession, and replaced Docherty with George Moncur at the break, but it was Stoke who came out fighting. The Potters capped off a good five-minute period of pressure with their second goal on 50 minutes, again coming from a brilliant assist by Clucas on the left; he cut the ball backwards to Ince, who hit home with a terrific strike from 18 yards.

A few minutes later, Wright-Phillips was disappointed not to make it 3-0 after his well-hit effort curved just over the crossbar.

As the hour mark approached, a couple more substitutions – Richie Smallwood and Randell Williams for Tom Huddlestone and Tyler Smith – seemed to fire City up a bit, while the Potters looked like they were sitting back just a little.

One attacking foray by the Tigers fizzled out as Ryan Longman had a great chance to take a shot from Williams’s cross, but for some reason chose to square it, to the despair of the City fans.

In the 69th minute, Chester headed just wide from a corner, and in the 75th minute Stoke substitute Lewis Baker saw a shot saved by Baxter as the Tigers were losing what little grasp they had on the game. With 10 minutes left, a goalmouth scramble resulted in a header from Jagielka being hastily cleared off the line.

As full-time approached, Moncur ballooned a shot well over, and then a poor first touch from a well-placed Longman, after a good long-range cross by Williams, extinguished any hopes of late drama.

A smattering of post-match boos were back - and the purple patch that pulled the Tigers out of the relegation mire has deserted them once again.

They remain 19th, but they could easily get dragged back into it, and this period of purgatory ahead of the potential takeover won’t be helping, despite the fact that the club says it’s business as usual until anything happens. When this will be… who knows?