PREMIER LEAGUE
Last season featured one of football’s greatest underdog stories with Leicester’s title win.
And Hull have picked up the baton when it comes to defying the odds.
Nobody would have had this earlyseason tea- time clash down as a top-of-the-table duel when the fixtures were announced in June.
Manchester United riding high in the opening weeks of the season? That would have been no surprise.
But Hull City? No chance. Especially not after their traumatic summer.
That they started the day third in the table is largely down to the calming influence of the unfazed Phelan.
He spent most of his coaching career learning from the best as Ferguson’s right-hand man.
Phelan got used to scaling the heights as Fergie’s No. 2, helping United win three Premier League titles, two League Cups, a World Club Cup and reach two Champions League finals. However, it is one thing doing it alongside the best and with some of the top players in the world, but it is quite another doing it with the paper-thin squad at Hull.
The club’s situation is so desperate and, at the same time, so remarkable that its story has been told countless times already this season.
Steve Bruce resigned in frustration at the club’s failed attempts to strengthen in the summer. He understandably feared he would be left with no chance of keeping Hull in the Premier League.
But Phelan has stepped in as caretaker with minimal fuss and given Hull a glimmer of hope that relegation doesn’t have t o be a formality.
With just 13 fit senior players he i ncredibly l ed Hull to victories in their first three games against champions Leicester and Swansea plus a League Cup win over Exeter. There was more good news on the eve of this game when a 14th player, defender Harry Maguire, was deemed fit enough to make the bench. Phelan has got Hull playing with the sort of fighting spirit that this sort of backs- to- the- wall situation can create. They might not be blessed with numbers but they have heart, desire, determination and resilience by the bucketload. It was there for all to see as they defended doggedly, diligently and with discipline. They broke out in pursuit of a shock goal when they could but spent most of the game putting their bodies on the line to f rustrate Jose Mourinho’s star-studded squad until their hearts were broken at the death by Marcus Rashford. Hull’s heroic, battling performance was all the more impressive coming against a club bl e s s e d with an a bsolute embarrassment of riches.
Mourinho has so many stars at his disposal that seven – Matteo Darmian, Phil Jones, Marcos Rojo, Michael Carrick, Bastian Schweinsteiger, Jesse Lingard and Memphis Depay – didn’t even make his matchday squad.
Of the seven, only Lingard is not a full international. Phelan would love to have the same problem. But for the time being he will have to continue hoping.
Hoping that Hull, who have yet to spend a penny this summer, can make a vital breakthrough in the transfer market before the window closes.
And hoping that when Hull’s Chinese takeover – described as “at an advanced stage” by vice-chairman Ehab Allam – is complete, he is the man the new owners want to lead the club forward on a permanent basis.
He couldn’t have done much more to prove he is the man for the job.