City crash out of Carabao Cup after penalty heartbreak
TOGETHER IN DEFEAT. Picture credit: Hull City
Hull City 1 - 1 Wigan Athletic (7-8 pens)
Carabao Cup
By Sam Hawcroft, Hull City correspondent
It sometimes seems like there are fewer things more certain in life than death, taxes and drawing Wigan in the Cup.
That’s how it felt for me, anyway, so I was surprised to discover that tonight was only the sixth time we’d played them in cup competitions since 1987; it feels like more, although they have been the team we’ve been drawn against the most in the League Cup in the past 20 years at least.
It was a fairly low turnout at the newly branded, freshly tiger-painted, MKM Stadium, with fans basking in the warm evening sun, as a much-changed side from City’s visit to Preston last week kicked off towards the few dozen Latics fans in the North Stand.
Despite it being the first competitive match in front of home fans since February 2020, the evening began with the air of a pre-season friendly.
Perhaps many City fans were saving themselves for the roar of a stadium open on all sides, and their first taste of league action proper against QPR next Saturday; as it was, the South Stand was closed and just the middle five blocks of the East Stand were anything like full.
The match itself began like a pre-season friendly, too, as a dull first half no doubt raised the prospect of penalties in the minds of both sets of fans from quite early on.
There was little action of note in the first 15 minutes or so, but Wigan’s Stephen Humphrys came closest with a chance that he could perhaps have done more with following an error by City’s on-loan Chelsea keeper Nathan Baxter, who a few minutes later redeemed himself and saved well to his left from Humphrys’ low downward header.
Shortly after, Matt Smith, one of a number of City debutants tonight, shot wide of the right post, sparking the fans momentarily into life – there was a half-hearted entreaty to the West Stand to “give us a song”, which they respectfully declined, as they usually do. Nature is healing, and all that.
Picture credit: Hull City
As the half wore on, ex-Tiger Will Keane put a glancing header wide as Wigan began to settle, and every attacking ball the Tigers hit in their 20-yard area seemed to cannon straight into a Latics player.
After the break, Wigan carried on their momentum, with Humphrys again carving out a chance in the 48th minute, but shooting straight at Baxter. He was looking ever more likely to find the net, which he did two minutes later, capitalising on a mix-up in the Tigers’ defence and drilling a shot home.
However, City hit back just five minutes later when Lewis-Potter latched on to a precision pass from Moncur, and delivered the sort of finish we’ve come to expect from KLP. A real beauty of a goal.
And then the Tigers found their mojo, a bit. Manchester United loanee Di’Shon Bernard really should have found the net from the Tigers’ second corner of the match on 70 minutes, slamming a free header into the ground and watching it bounce high over the bar.
By now both teams were picking up the pace in an effort to spare us all from penalties, and in the 76th minute only the right-hand post prevented Wigan taking the lead through a header from Keane.
Tigers substitute Harry Wood shot over just as the game trundled into injury time and towards its inevitable conclusion. This is now the seventh season in a row that City have been involved in a penalty shoot-out, and this one proved to be good value, at least.
Neither side blinked until well into sudden death, and it fell to poor Bernard, City’s eighth penalty taker, to be the fall guy.
He skied his spot-kick well into the upper echelons of the empty South Stand, and had to be consoled by Grant McCann as the Tigers crowd erupted in supportive applause.
So, as a first course to the main dish on Saturday, this was a bit of a thin, bland soup with a bitter aftertaste.
But that’s ok. It’s just great to be back.