Hull v Bristol City Preview

Both of these sides were tipped to make promotion pushes at the start of the season, yet so far most of their battling has been at the bottom end of the table. However, both have experienced a huge upturn in form over the past few weeks although their league positions are still lowly, with Hull sat in 19th while Bristol City are a couple of places higher in 17th. It’s certainly a completely different fixture to the last time these two met, where Hull defeated City to earn promotion to the top flight in the 2008 playoff final.

Hull come into this game with the news that their takeover has just been completed and Nigel Pearson will hope that will make for a clean start at the KC Stadium. When he left Leicester during the summer to join Hull, in the back of his mind he must have thought that the Tigers had an excellent chance of promotion having only been relegated from the Premiership last season. However, all in all the club have struggled and a return of twenty three points from the opening months of the season will not impress their supporters. However, Pearson’s men are now unbeaten in five and should they taste victory here, they should build a significant gap between them and the bottom three as the festive period approaches.

Bristol City have also experienced a dreadful start to the season although Keith Millen will be hoping that their start is firmly behind them following the past few weeks. The Robins have now won three in a row having beaten Leicester, Sheffield United and Derby. All of those games were at home but having scored seven and not conceded any, it now looks as though the Ashton Gate outfit may have finally turned the corner. With twenty six points to their name so far, they head into this game knowing that victory could even catapult them into the top half. That would be a huge achievement for Millen at this stage of the campaign after so many doubted him during the opening stages of his reign at the club.

As for team news, Hull have plenty of problems heading into this one and Nigel Pearson is set to be without four players. Nick Barmby, Richard Garcia, Mark Cullen and Daniel Ayala are all carrying injuries and have already been declared unfit to play. Bristol City also approach the match with problems and Keith Millen will have two absentees, as Liam Fontaine and Louis Carey struggle with ankle and calf problems respectively.

In terms of a prediction, we’re going to predict an away win here. Hull are without lots of players and with Bristol City on a superb winning streak at the moment, we’ll predict a narrow 1-0 win for the Robins.

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