No beauty contest, but committed City muffle alarm bells for another week
CAMPBELL’S STRIKE ENOUGH TO SEAL THREE POINTS AND END TIGERS’ 83-YEAR WAIT FOR VICTORY IN BOLTON
Twenty one visits spanning 83 years and not one single victory. Whether at Burnden Park or Bolton Wanderers’ current home in Horwich, these have been the unhappiest of hunting grounds for Hull City.
March 1935, four and a half years before the outbreak of World War Two, was the only occasion City had ever returned from this corner of Greater Manchester with a victory but that long wait is now mercifully at an end.
And boy did the Tigers need this landmark result.
The draining, miserable run that had led Nigel Adkins to Bolton was slowly suffocating optimism. Seven games without a win might have included promising performances but more was needed to dispel the theory that this is a campaign slowly subsiding. Only a win would really do.
That long-awaited success came thanks to Fraizer Campbell’s seventh-minute strike and a show of defensive resilience that for once would not be undermined in stoppage time. City were not always pretty but this meeting of likely relegation rivals was more a strongman show than a beauty contest.
At the 15th time of asking, the Tigers finally hit double figures for the season.
The 10th, 11th and 12th points banked at the University of Bolton Stadium do not mask the shortcomings that have run through August, September and October but they did remind the 427 travelling fans that this is a team still prepared to scrap for a cause the owners have all-but given up on.
“You could see there’s a spirit and togetherness amongst the players,” said Adkins afterwards. “Everyone contributed. I’m really pleased for all the players and staff.
“We’ve got a team and a belonging here. These are the times when you find out about the people you’ve got around you. Again we produced a spirited performance.”
Adkins used the exact same buzzwords after last week’s games with Preston North End and Bristol City but this time they did not jar. The result gave them a foundation this time around. No longer did they seem quite so hollow.
The Tigers, though, have been building towards this third win of the season.
Adkins’ men might have had a point away to league-leaders Sheffield United before the international break and really ought to have beaten Preston in the first game back. A draw was also the least they deserved at Bristol City in midweek.
A better performance had arguably come at Ashton Gate than the one good enough to beat Bolton but it mattered not. Desperate times ruled out the need for panache or flair. Commitment and discipline were the order of the day and they came in spades. Campbell 7
“Things have maybe gone against us a little bit but we prepare well for every game,” said Adkins. “On a daily basis we’ve got everyone contributing. I’m always optimistic about what we do.
“We scored early for a change here. We’ve created a lot of opportunities early on previous games and this time we’ve taken one.”
This restorative result was ultimately made possible by a piece of ruthless finishing that City had so badly lacked in previous weeks.
Markus Henriksen, feisty on his return as captain, played a ball into the penalty area that was dummied by Kamil Grosicki and there was Campbell to send a first-time finish low past Ben Alnwick in the Bolton goal.
Adkins appeared to bristle at the suggestion that Campbell had proved a point but that is precisely what the striker had done. Overlooked against Middlesbrough, Leeds, Preston and Bristol City, a return to the starting XI delivered the goal that Chris Martin, Campbell’s replacement up front, is still waiting for in black and amber.
As much as Campbell’s name demanded the headlines, however, City’s victory owed everything to a stoic defensive effort.
This, lest we forget, was a makeshift rearguard denied the services of four senior central defenders. Tommy Elphick was excellent as the leader of the pack, while Robbie Mckenzie also enjoyed a full Championship debut to remember. The former South Holderness School pupil, on City’s books since the age of 10, scarcely put a foot wrong.
Credit also went to full-backs Eric Lichaj and Stephen Kingsley, as well as second-half substitute Ondrej Mazuch, for the
unyielding protection afforded to goalkeeper David Marshall. A second clean-sheet of the season has been coming and for all Bolton pushed for an equaliser, it was rarely in any great doubt.
Clayton Donaldson enjoyed the one big chance that came the home team’s way. The City academy graduate was sent racing free by Erhun Oztumer’s threaded pass but, one-on-one with Marshall, he sent his shot high and wide of an exposed goal.
A better team might have punished City at other times, too, but Bolton are in much the same rut that the Tigers are attempting to climb out of. Dangerman Oztumer was always a jinking threat without being able to find the telling pass, while Christian Doidge and Donaldson showed their limitations.
Bolton supporters were far from happy watching the latest chapter of a nosediving season. They chanted “attack, attack, attack” at one point of the second half but Oztumer’s curling shot wide was as close as they came in spells of long pressure.
City, in fact, had the best chance of them all to net an anxious fixture’s second goal. Jackson Irvine’s pass into Jarrod Bowen brought a ball back into the path of Grosicki but the Poland international could not produce the finish required for a first goal since April.
Not that it mattered for once. One was enough for City to conquer Bolton and move back to within two points of the safety line ahead of the testing fixtures to come against West Brom and Birmingham.
The Tigers will have done superbly well if they have escaped the bottom three by the time the next international break arrives but a first win at Bolton in the post-war years has turned down the alarm bells for at least a week.