Marked for Ryan Giles
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Match27 Mar 2027
Rarely has this fixture seen a display like it: 3‑0 against Bristol City, and it could have been more.
Player ratings29 Mar 2027
27 defensive actions and a clean sheet at the end of them. A defender's afternoon can only be told by what did not happen, which is why nobody makes a highlights package out of one and every manager in the division would take it.
Squad29 Mar 2027
“I remember the meeting. I remember exactly what was promised in it.” Hull City may remember it differently, which is precisely the problem.
Squad29 Mar 2027
Toby Collyer was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Player ratings29 Mar 2027
There is a version of this player everybody suspected was in there, and on this evidence it is. 8.94, and no argument anywhere in the ground.
Player ratings29 Mar 2027
20 defensive actions and a clean sheet at the end of them. A defender's afternoon can only be told by what did not happen, which is why nobody makes a highlights package out of one and every manager in the division would take it.
Player ratings29 Mar 2027
Charlie Hughes was on a different afternoon to everybody else
8.52. There are performances a supporter describes to somebody who was not there and cannot quite convey; this was one, and the number does not help either.
Squad29 Mar 2027
Words at Hull City training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Samuele di Benedetto is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
Squad29 Mar 2027
11 clean sheets and counting. Strikers leave this ground muttering his name, which is exactly how a goalkeeper measures a good season.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Match23 Jan 2027
Bolton Wanderers will want this one forgotten quickly: 4‑0, every duel lost, and a long ride home. Hull City were ruthless in the way good sides are ruthless.
Squad25 Jan 2027
3 goals in one game. The first was taken well, the second was taken greedily, and by the third the crowd were simply waiting for him to get the ball.
Market25 Jan 2027
Fulham pay $1.3M, and the deal is done. The number reads well on a balance sheet; whether it reads well on the pitch is next season's question.
Player ratings25 Jan 2027
Mohamed Belloumi was on a different afternoon to everybody else
9.98. There are performances a supporter describes to somebody who was not there and cannot quite convey; this was one, and the number does not help either.
Squad25 Jan 2027
Paddy McNair in a row with a teammate
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Hull City this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Player ratings25 Jan 2027
Ninety minutes of Oli McBurnie at his very best
Marked 8.73. Players have careers without a single afternoon like this in them, and he has just had one in front of everybody at Hull City.
Match23 Jan 2027
2 goals inside twenty minutes with Mohamed Belloumi in the middle of it, and Bolton Wanderers unable to get near the ball long enough to change anything. Some matches are won before the first drink.
Squad25 Jan 2027
The manager makes an example of Conor Townsend
“If you cannot run for the shirt, somebody else will wear it.” No name was used and none was needed; every player in that room knew who it was for.
Squad25 Jan 2027
Ryan Giles falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad19 Oct 2026
Ivor Pandur in a row with a teammate
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Hull City this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad19 Oct 2026
Dennis Cirkin falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
Match17 Oct 2026
Liam Millar scored, and precious little else went right: 1‑2 to Leeds United, and a quiet walk to the dressing room.
Squad19 Oct 2026
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Toby Collyer, and the manager let it.
Squad19 Oct 2026
Too much change too quickly at Hull City
11 signings in three months. Every one of them may be an upgrade and the team can still be worse for a while, which is the part of a rebuild that never appears in the transfer-window verdicts.
Player ratings19 Oct 2026
Successful dribbles: 15. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.