City beat the promotion hopefuls 3-1 at the MKM Stadium
Barry Cooper Hull City correspondent
05:00, 21 Sep 2025
Hull City’s Oli McBurnie bagged the Tigers’ third against Southampton(Image: PA Wire/PA Images)
Oli McBurnie admits coming off the pitch with a goal and assist masked what he felt was a frustrating personal performance for Hull City against Southampton.
McBurnie‘s clever header laid it on a plate for John Lundstram to smash in the second before he headed in Ryan Giles’ free-kick to put City 3-0 up against Southampton, before Adam Armstrong netted a 95th-minute consolation.
The striker took his tally of Championship goals for the season to three with as many assists in what was a deserved victory against the Saints, who dominated the ball without posing any significant threat to the hosts, who were clinical when their chances came.
McBurnie was a constant threat up the top of the pitch and delivered an impressive showing, although the striker felt he was a tad under-par.
“I think the good thing about being a striker is you can have a bit of a beast all game and get a goal and an assist, and it looks like you’ve had a great game,” the forward told Hull Live.
“I was quite frustrated in the first half and in the second half with my own performance, to be fair, but, yeah, like I say, I come off with a goal and assist and a 3-1, so happy days in the end.”
City backed up that deserved point in Swansea a week ago with an eye-catching victory over one of the promotion favourites, and McBurnie says the players were determined not to pass up the chance to capitalise on that momentum.
“I think we were kind of stressing that we wanted to pick up where we left off towards the second half of the Swansea game last week, and I think we did that,” he continued.
“They’re a good team, a lot of very talented footballers, and we’re a bit disappointed that we didn’t get a clean clean sheet in the end, take a, take a 3-0 win, but a 3-1 win against a good team that is, is very pleasing for the boys.”
City have looked progressively tighter since the difficulties at Bristol City before the international break, and were on course for a first clean sheet since the opening day at Coventry, but going forward, Sergej Jakirovic’s men have bagged 10 in the last five outings.
“This season’s been funny because we know we can hurt teams going forward,” he explained. “I think we’ve shown that, in pretty much every game, how we pretty much know we’re going to score a goal, minimum. If we can tighten up at the other end, keep a clean sheet, and concede one goal in a game, more than likely we’re going to pick up results.
“That’s something that we’ve worked on the last week or two. We’re more than happy to let their centre halves have the ball in certain areas where they’re not going to hurt us.
“They’re (Southampton) going to have a lot of the ball but not get anywhere and then when it’s about when we get the ball back, them being out of position. I think the second goal is a great example of that.
“It’s a counter-attack, we’ve played really well, it’s a great ball from skip (Lewie Coyle), and then I’ve just knocked one down to the third man and it’s a goal and you’re 2-0 up, so I think that kind of sums us up.”
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