Perhaps last week’s triumph was not a one-off. Hull backed up a shock victory against Manchester United by maintaining their 100% start to the Premier League by condemning Coventry to successive defeats.
“We’re gonna win the league,” was the glorious chant raining down from the Hull support after Liam Millar’s 82nd-minute strike. The goal was a sucker-punch for Coventry, who were pushing for a winner themselves and looked set to at least earn their first point of the season. Frank Lampard, arms folded, was unmoved as the away end rejoiced.
For Coventry, as their owner and chair, Doug King, said beforehand, a first Premier League home game for more than 25 years was a historic day for the city. “I know how much it means to all of us,” he said, this also their first top-flight game in this stadium.
The buzz before kick-off was palpable, none more so than when King – wearing an elephant brooch on his suit, the animal that adorns Coventry’s badge and the city’s coat of arms – joined tens of thousands of Coventry supporters in singing along to The Enemy’s We’ll Live and Die in These Towns, the club’s adopted pre-match anthem. The pyrotechnics left a haze drifting across the pitch as things got under way.
At full time, it was Millar and Sergej Jakirovic conducting the Hull celebrations. Both teams lacked quality but Coventry were undeniably the more threatening side. Taiwo Awoniyi, on his full league debut for the club, sent a weak header at Konstantinos Tzolakis and later forced the Hull goalkeeper into a smart right-hand save after Loum Tchaouna’s cross skidded off the head of Nobel Mendy.
Lampard cycled through substitutions, the arrival Gus Hamer, something of a hero in these parts, particularly lifting the home crowd, but they struggled to test Tzolakis.
Millar, who arrived on the hour in place of Elliot Stroud, had wasted Hull’s best opening with 74 minutes on the clock. Jakirovic wore a look of disgust after the Canada winger ignored an unmarked Mohamed Belloumi to his right and sent a shot bobbling wide after a clever first-time pass by Oli McBurnie.
Until then, their only shot on target was a speculative effort from 30 yards from the left-back Mendy. But Millar made amends, coolly slotting past Carl Rushworth to cap a devastating counterattack.
