{"id":869327,"date":"2026-08-24T05:12:12","date_gmt":"2026-08-24T05:12:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/869327\/"},"modified":"2026-08-24T05:12:12","modified_gmt":"2026-08-24T05:12:12","slug":"hull-city-2-0-manchester-united-assistant-dean-holden-on-back-five-tactic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/869327\/","title":{"rendered":"Hull City 2-0 Manchester United: Assistant Dean Holden on back five tactic"},"content":{"rendered":"

Hull City<\/a> boss Sergej Jakirovic kept his plan to topple Manchester United<\/a> on their Premier League return under wraps for weeks, assistant head coach Dean Holden told Match of the Day.<\/p>\n

The Tigers produced a sensational 2-0 opening-weekend win over Michael Carrick’s side on Saturday while deploying a back five. <\/p>\n

Hull were making their first Premier League appearance in nine years after coming up through the play-offs last year.<\/p>\n

First-half goals from defenders Semi Ajayi and Nobel Mendy gave them their first league win over United since 1974.<\/p>\n

Jakirovic altered his tactics for the game, having watched a couple of United’s pre-season matches, including the 4-2 defeat by AC Milan, engineered by former boss Ruben Amorim, when he repeatedly switched play to his wing-backs, which United’s defence failed to cover.<\/p>\n

When quizzed on the tactic, Holden told Match of Day: “We certainly didn’t copy Ruben Amorim.<\/p>\n

“Serg had it in the back of his mind for three or four weeks that he was thinking of playing a back five. He didn’t want to give anything away in pre-season, so we played a back four. <\/p>\n

“The easiest thing to do in preparation was using some of the Milan clips and Leeds<\/a> the week before played a back three too, so that helped us with players where the systems looked similar.”<\/p>\n

Hull’s win over United, who finished third in the Premier League last season, is perhaps even more remarkable given the Tigers only had 28% of possession. <\/p>\n

But seeing limited amounts of the ball is not a cause for concern for Hull says Holden. <\/p>\n

“We are comfortable without the ball, so it is not like we are coming up here having dominated the Championship and now we have to change,” said Holden.<\/p>\n

“We are comfortable in that mid-block, that is one of our biggest strengths. Counter-attack as well.<\/p>\n

“Sunderland<\/a> set the trend with Leeds<\/a> in terms of teams who have come up, and for us, it is about belief. <\/p>\n

“We have a group of lads who have done the hard yards, there is no real superstars in there. <\/p>\n

“The manager is the same, very humble. Feet will be firmly on the ground.” <\/p>\n

Jakirovic’s Hull were favourites to finish bottom of the Premier League, having only squeezed into the play-offs on the final day of last season.<\/p>\n

They then became the first team to finish sixth and win the play-offs in 16 years – beating Middlesbrough in the final.<\/p>\n

Just 15 months ago the Tigers had been close to being relegated to League One, only staying in the Championship on goal difference in 2024-25.<\/p>\n

Three of the team who started their 1-1 draw against Portsmouth on the final day that secured their Championship status were in the team which beat United.<\/p>\n

Former Oldham Athletic, Bristol City and Charlton manager Holden joined the Tigers that summer.<\/p>\n

“We are aiming to stay in the league. It is the hardest thing to do and then you build on top of that,” Holden added.<\/p>\n

“But a win at home in the first game is beyond anyone’s dreams really. The performance is the biggest thing, the confidence, the belief, will stand us in good stead.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Hull City boss Sergej Jakirovic kept his plan to topple Manchester United on their Premier League return under…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":869328,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[440],"tags":[49,48,561,82],"class_list":["post-869327","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\/869327","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=869327"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/869327\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/869328"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=869327"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=869327"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=869327"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}