Former Hull City skipper Curtis Davies admits it was his old club’s poor defending that gifted Middlesbrough a narrow 1-0 victory on New Year’s Day to plunge the Tigers back into the Championship’s bottom three.
City were well below-par against Michael Carrick’s Boro but looked to be on course for a valuable point to back up their win at Blackburn Rovers. But another defensive calamity allowed substitutes Delano Burgzorg and Alex Gilbert to combine to score the winner in the 93rdd minute.
Davies felt winger Abu Kamara, skipper Lewie Coyle, and Steven Alzate should have all done better to defend the match-winning moment. It was a lapse in concentration that cost them dearly and denied them what would have been a morale-boosting result ahead of Leeds United this weekend.
“It was more Hull’s downfall based on the goal (more than Boro doing anything special to win the game),” Davies said on Sky Sports. “You have to give credit to (Delano) Burgzorg and for the finish as well, but having seen it, Abu Kamara is running back slightly laboured in his way back, three of them then go to the ball without actually engaging the cross, it allows (Delano) Burgzorg to pick out the cross, and it’s a simple tap-in inside the six-yard box which is really frustrating.
“Abu Kamara has come on as a sub, and you really want him to break his neck to get back; he doesn’t really do it, and then you end up with him, (Steven) Alzate and (Lewie) Coyle all around him but no one really makes that final engagement, and then it allows Burgzorg to get his head up and pick the pass out.”
Ex-Nottingham Forest and Ipswich Town skipper Luke Chambers went even further than Davies in criticising the final meaningful play of the game but did credit Ivor Pandur for another solid display in the Tigers’ goal.
“Once he enters the box, you have to get some pressure on the ball. At the end, we’re just hanging out a leg, there’s two men doing absolutely nothing but the arrival and timing of Gilbert’s run and the finish is absolutely fantastic, at that time of the game,” Chambers added. “Burgzorg had an immediate impact. They changed the two wide players, and that’s what’s won them the game.
“He’s (Pandur) made some good saves, don’t get me wrong, but they’re routine enough saves, and that’s what they can be positive about. Hull really limited Middlesbrough to pot shots, snapshots and outside the area, but he’ll look back on that goal and he’ll see his outfield players, his wide player, the full-back, his centre midfield player not doing enough to win them the point.”
Davies continued the praise of City’s Croatian stopper, who has grown into the role of being the Tigers’ number one this season, having only made his senior debut on the opening day against Bristol City. “He’d made some really good saves, and it is frustrating because I think both mentally to lose this late, but when you go back and analyse the whole performance – he himself will be able to analyse the whole performance; he played his part, but also as a team, they’ll feel a lot happier with the way they defended throughout the game.
“It wasn’t the way they wanted to play the game in general, they wanted to have more shots at the other end, but they’re a lot more solid entity, and they know that it’s just down to that fine detail in those final moments they let themselves down, but he’s (Pandur) had a fantastic game.”
Selles has made City more solid since the days of Tim Walter. But against Boro, his side failed to muster a single shot on target and Davies says finding that balance between being tighter and threatening at the other end will be key to their hopes of escaping trouble.
He said: “It’s finding that balance, isn’t it? Under (Tim) Walter, they were very much an open team that maybe will end up having shots and chances at the other end but were wide open at the back. Now, they’ve become a more solid entity at the back, but it’s about them working out, ‘Right, we’re solid, but how do we spring attacks?’
“Unfortunately for them, when they transitioned, they lost the ball too soon and allowed Middlesbrough to keep that momentum, and in the second half, it was very much one-sided.”