![\"hull](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/skysports-hull-city_7174138.jpg\")
<\/p>\nHull consolidated their place in the Sky Bet Championship play-offs with a 4-2 win at home to Derby.<\/p>\n
Second-half goals from John Egan and Lewis Koumas earned the Tigers three important points after they had lost their last two league games.<\/p>\n
Hull took the lead after nine minutes when Callum Elder scored an own goal against his former side.<\/p>\n
Craig Forsyth equalised seven minutes later for Derby, only for Oli McBurnie to score his 13th goal of the campaign after another Elder gaffe.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Sammie Szmodics restored parity for the Rams three minutes before the break, before Egan and Koumas consigned John Eustace’s men to back-to-back defeats.<\/p>\n
Despite their mini-slump, the Tigers began positively and deserved their early lead.<\/p>\n
Ryan Giles and Liam Millar were the architects of the opening goal after the former tried to catch Josh Vickers unawares at his near post following a smart overlap.<\/p>\n
Amir Hadziahmetovic whipped over the resulting corner from the left, which was aimed at McBurnie towards the back post, but the ball shaved off Elder’s back and into the net.<\/p>\n
Hull fancied their chances at this stage, with Giles and Millar a continuous nuisance.<\/p>\n
But Derby had yet to play their trump card by exploiting a clear weakness down Hull’s right-hand side.<\/p>\n
And they capitalised upon that deficiency with virtually their first offensive moment of the game.<\/p>\n
Szmodics initially did well to recover an aimless deep corner before he passed to Lewis Travis, who bustled into the penalty area before striking accurately at goal.<\/p>\n
Ivor Pandur reacted to the danger, to an extent, but he could only paw the ball into the path of Forsyth, who could not miss.<\/p>\n
The visitors had hit their straps and nearly made it 2-1 five minutes later when Patrick Agyemang’s lovely, weaving run along the right flank ended with the USA international striking just over the crossbar.<\/p>\n
There followed a lull from the earlier breathlessness until, against the run of play, McBurnie cashed in on Elder’s howler.<\/p>\n
Elder, who was replaced at half-time, was again at fault as his reckless cross-field pass was easily cut out by Joe Gelhardt.<\/p>\n
Gelhardt then passed to the onrushing McBurnie, who pirouetted clear of Forsyth before striking cleanly past Vickers.<\/p>\n
There was, however, always the sense that Derby would score again before the restart.<\/p>\n
And so it proved in similar circumstances to that of their first goal. Agyemang this time charged into the box from the left before shooting across the face of goal.<\/p>\n
Pandur again failed to parry the ball to safety and Szmodics did the rest from a central position.<\/p>\n
The second half was mild in nature, by comparison, though Bobby Clark really should have done better when one-on-one with Pandur.<\/p>\n
Derby were punished for that miss after Egan made it 3-2 when he instinctively turned and shot after having been teed up by McBurnie after 75 minutes.<\/p>\n
Koumas then put the game out of sight after 84 minutes with a superb chest and volley from in behind a statuesque Derby backline.<\/p>\n
The managers<\/p>\n
Hull’s Sergej Jakirovic:<\/p>\n
“I’m very happy because the players showed a great team effort – a lot of fight all around the pitch.<\/p>\n
“We changed our style – we were very pragmatic, but we were also very aggressive in our challenges.<\/p>\n
“We have to continue like this. I said to the lads before the game, ‘I don’t care about possession’, and that was maybe something to think about for next time.<\/p>\n
“It was just about how we took three points that mattered.”<\/p>\n
Derby’s John Eustace:<\/p>\n
“I’m disappointed to lose, of course. It was a cracking game and I’m proud of the efforts of the group.<\/p>\n
“We had great chances to score more, but I was disappointed with all four goals we gave away.<\/p>\n
“We were very disappointed (against Watford) on Saturday, but we battled very well and should really be coming away with at least a point.<\/p>\n
“We’ve had three or four one-one-one chances – we could have scored five or six goals for sure – but goals change games.<\/p>\n
“If we put one of them away it’s a different story, but we were against a top team who took their chances.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Hull consolidated their place in the Sky Bet Championship play-offs with a 4-2 win at home to Derby.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":498253,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[440],"tags":[49,48,561,82],"class_list":["post-498252","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-soccer","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-soccer","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/498252","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=498252"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/498252\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/498253"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=498252"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=498252"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=498252"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}