Late goal breaks Tigers’ hearts

ANOTHER NIGHT, ANOTHER LOSS AS INJURIES HIT CITY AT BRISTOL

Diedhiou 90+3

Another away day, another defeat. And, all of a sudden, the Championship’s relegation zone is starting to feel too much like home for this luckless Hull City side.

A fifth consecutive loss outside of East Yorkshire brought the Tigers’ ailing plight into sharp focus last night. There was another bitterly cruel finale as Bristol City snatched a 93rd minute winner through Famara Diedhiou but a familiarly fruitless outing only increased the fears that this is a team close to being cut adrift.

Nigel Adkins’ side are slowly sinking deeper into trouble. The slide almost feels irreversible on nights such as these.

There was another show of fight at Ashton Gate, a willingness to keep scrapping against a promotion candidate, but beyond that there was a telling lack of attacking quality. The Tigers, just as they had been on eight previous occasions this season, did not have enough to avoid defeat in the end.

Costly chances were spurned when Adkins’ men were in the ascendancy and it is now almost 10 hours since they scored from open play. Kamil Grosicki, Jarrod Bowen and Tommy Elphick all came close without breaking a barren spell that spans six and a half games.

City now find themselves four points adrift of the safety line.

Even winning at Bolton Wanderers on Saturday would be insufficient to escape the bottom three.

That two thirds of this season remain offers the only hope at present but the pattern being set through autumn is undeniable foreboding.

Can Adkins turn it around? Is a takeover needed to truly spark a revival? These are the questions without answers but the hardiest of souls that trekked home from Ashton Gate were hardly brimming with confidence for what the season has in store. These truly are worrying times for a club unprepared for the demands of this unrelenting division.

Adkins had clearly seen something he had liked in the weekend draw with Preston North End and opted for an unchanged side for the first time since the opening month of the season. That approach had offered his team strong defensive foundations with scope to counter and it should also have brought the Tigers the earliest of leads.

Todd Kane, switched to right wing-back, needed less than two minutes to make an impact when skipping easily inside Jay Dasilva and crossing low into a scrambled Bristol City defence. The ball fell kindly to Grosicki but the winger’s shot from 10 yards out was parried by Max O’leary and cleared.

The Robins had been ponderous starters but gradually began to push the visitors back on their heels. Niclas Eliasson’s shot from distance forced stand-in skipper David Marshall to push wide before Diedhiou’s incisive pass set up Jamie Paterson to again test City’s keeper.

Eliasson’s quick feet and the subsequent curling effort asked even more of Marshall but the Tigers more than held their own across a promising opening period.

Three corners in quick succession midway through the half underlined City were not a guest intent of containing and the last of those almost brought the opener. Chris Martin was audacious in his planning but just out with his delivery. A hooked overhead kick drifted narrowly wide of O’leary’s post.

Bristol City rarely looked overly comfortable in their defensive work, with Grosicki’s pace again causing opponents to worry. One dart to the byline finished with a cross fizzing all the way through the six-yard box without the telling touch.

Grosicki was again the architect of a big chance for the visitors in the 37th minute. Bristol City’s wayward passing was pounced upon and the winger cut infield to feed the run of Bowen. The Tigers’ top scorer did well to cut inside but his attempts to find the far corner on his favoured foot ended with disappointment.

If Adkins had been buoyed by the efforts of his side, he very nearly found himself