Goals
26 - Julian Johnsson - David Beresford's cross was diverted to the back post by the head of Alex Watson, and Johnsson was on hand to smash the ball home. A superb finish.
67 - Gary Alexander - Ryan Williams and Mike Edwards combined well on the right, and the winger picked out Alexander with a tremendous cross. He duely did the rest, heading past Fraser to notch his 20th goal of the season.
Bookings
Glenn Cronin, Chris Curran
Tigers Line-Up
(4-4-2) Musselwhite, Holt, Wicks, Whittle (Mohan 61), Edwards, Beresford, Johnsson, Greaves, Williams, Alexander, Dudfield
Not Used - Glennon, Whitmore, Sneekes, Rowe
Attendance
8,459 - Actually an increased number of City fans than on Tuesday, as Exeter only brought about 50-75.
Brief Notes
What an improvement. A terriffic performance, with the players battling away throughout the game, showing tremendous spirit and determination. They also produced some great football, with no-one in the side playing badly. Honourable mentions must go to Mike Edwards and Mark Greaves, both of whom were outstanding. Ryan Williams and Julian Johnsson also had brilliant games.
From the get-go, the Tigers were in complete control, and did not let up during the entire 90 minutes. The Grecians had a very brief spell of pressure in stoppage time, but generally did not have much of a sniff going forward. Defensively City were much improved from recent weeks, from the forwards to the back 4. Meanwhile, going forward, the players showed a lot more invention and creativity, with Williams showing what we bought him for.
It was extremely pleasing to see a repsonse of this manner. Fans have criticised the effort and commitment over the last few weeks but both were shown in abundance today. Mark Greaves and Julian Johnsson worked overtime in central midfield, which has been a problem area for us lately, and I would hazard a guess Brian will stick with them for the trip to Southend on Tuesday.
Bloody marvellous.
They Said
Brian Little, speaking to the Official Site, www.hullcityafc.net
"It's nice to win because over the last month or so we've had a lot of games where we've felt we'd done enough to get something. But as everyone knows it hasn't been happening and it's hard to argue when you're not getting results."
"The performance against Exeter was perhaps less spectacular than some of the ones we're served up at home in recent weeks but it was solid and as a team we made it harder for the opposition to play which was part of the game plan. Ultimately we got our chances because of our resilience and the personnel that we had out there."
"Some of the passing and movement, particularly in the first half, was excellent but the thing we had worked on was making life difficult for them when they had the ball. We didn't want them to enjoy being here and our work rate when not in possession was as good as it's been for a long time."
"When footballers have their backs against the wall they tend to come out fighting and I just felt that before the game in the dressing room that the players were ready to come out and give a really good account of themselves. We've had a lot of disappointment in recent weeks and plenty of things have been said so it was nice to go out there and get back to winning ways."
"Gary's obviously happy to be on the score sheet again and I think Lawrie was extremely unfortunate not to get one as well. We've concentrated a lot more on what they do when they don't have the ball and that was part of the conversation before the game. The only way to come through a spell like they've had is for them to roll their sleeves up and work very, very hard. The fact that they concentrated more on the defensive side of things helped them get into better positions and we've just tried to encourage the pair of them."
"Gary got his reward and interestingly enough it's the first time since the opening day of the season down at Exeter that we've been able to pick the sort of team we selected. Fortunately it's got us the result and hopefully we can build from here."
Action
Highlights of the game can be viewed here, via the Official Hull City Site, www.hullcityafc.net |
