Hull strive to be heroes and manage it but just for one half
The odds were stacked firmly against Hull City under new manager Marco Silva at Old Trafford last night as
JUST 30 miles separate Lisbon, home city of Marco Silva, and the port municipality of Setubal, where Jose Mourinho was born.
In terms of the footballing expectations at the rival Portuguese managers’ respective clubs of Hull City and Manchester United, the distance between them is much greater. A few time zones apart, in fact. United’s raison d’etre is to win trophies, and they are the staple food of a ravenous silverware gathering manager in Mourinho, positively famished over the past season and a half aside from the mere morsel of a Charity Shield win in August.
Seeking his first full and substantive meal at Old Trafford, a choice helping of a League Cup final success would help sate his appetite temporarily.
Mourinho was understandably generous with his pre-match words in the match-day programme towards a man 13 years his junior in Silva following the latter’s arrival in East Yorkshire last week.
But with it, as with most things with Mourinho, came a caveat. “I wish him well” he said. “But not in this tie.”
And not when the two sides reconvene at Old Trafford in exactly three weeks for a league meeting, for that matter.
Mourinho’s line-up did not smack of bonhomie, but business. Most of his leading cast lined up from the start, apart from the ill Zlatan Ibrahimovic, underlining a firm statement of intent.
A warm embrace ensued between the Iberian pair before the kick-off, before the hospitality mat was pulled away for 90 minutes.
The task facing Hull, with just 15 fit professionals and able to field just six substitutes, was considerable.
It was an against-the-odds situation that Silva’s two predecessors in Mike Phelan and Steve Bruce were also versed in at Hull and would certainly have acknowledged.
Phelan copped a watching brief from the Sky Studios as opposed to the technical area – his preferred placement taken away – and Bruce sat in the main stand with son Alex, one of several Hull players who were unavailable and forced to watch on from the sidelines.
The trio would have feared it being a long night for their former club on the early evidence of the first half, but, somewhat typically in the context of this season, Hull’s players displayed a strong jaw and hung in there amid some adversity.
More arrived in the first half when the unfortunate Markus Henriksen was stretchered off with an arm injury, and Silva could be forgiven for wondering just what he had let himself in for.
Hull made it to half-time and even had a couple of half-decent moments.
On the first anniversary of the death of David Bowie, Hull were striving to be heroes. Just for one day, at Old Trafford.
Strictly speaking for the first time in almost 55 years, with the 55th anniversary of Hull’s last win on the red side of Manchester arriving tomorrow in a 2-0 FA Cup success on January 12, 1952 – when George VI was still on the throne.
Just as another man who Mourinho knows well in Aitor Karanka made it a far from straightforward day at the office on United’s last home league game, so Silva’s charges showed tenacity and defiance as had Middlesbrough recently until Mata broke their resistance in front of the Stretford End on 56 minutes to ease a spot of anxiety.
And substitute Marouane Fellain headed a heart-breaking second in the 87th minute.