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Hull banking on three home wins to stay up, says Michael Dawson
If Hull City’s away form had been even half as good as that at the KCOM Stadium this season they would be fighting it out with Stoke City for a top-10 finish rather than looking anxiously at the results of the three teams below them.
Hull have not won away from home – indeed, they have picked up only two points – since beating Swansea at the Liberty Stadium in August, when seven points from their opening four matches suggested a rather different season.
Hardly surprising, then, that their players are wondering if they can win enough points at home in their last five matches that failing to break the losing habit on the road will not matter.
“We’ve been terrible on the road but our home form puts us in a position where it’s still in our hands,” their captain, Michael Dawson, said after goals from Peter Crouch and Xherdan Shaqiri nullified Harry Maguire’s equaliser following Marko Arnautovic’s early strike and consigned them to a 14th away defeat.
Given that the last one is against Tottenham, a maximum return may be optimistic. But five wins in six at home since Marco Silva replaced Mike Phelan as manager in January suggests that Watford next Saturday and Sunderland on May 6 should hold no fears.
Dawson believes that victories over West Ham and Middlesbrough in Hull’s last two home fixtures proved they have the character to pull off an escape. “Those were games we had to win and we did,” Dawson said.
The key, he said, is to avoid the errors that cost them dearly again on Saturday.
“We went in 1-0 down at half-time but kept on going because we’ve got the character,” he said. “We started the second half really brightly, got back to 1-1 and we had the belief we could go on and win the game, never mind take a point.
“So to concede two goals and lose 3-1 was harsh.”
The afternoon was illuminated by the brilliance of Shaqiri, whose exquisite touches and 30-yard strike for Stoke’s third goal underlined why Stoke manager Mark Hughes is desperate to believe that the problems with a calf injury that have hampered the Swiss international all season have been solved.
“He needs to be confident in his body,” Hughes said.
Shaqiri believes rest is the key. “You have to appreciate I also played at the Euros and didn’t have a lot of holiday and I’ve never had calf problems,” he said.
“This season we will have more holidays as there is no Euros, no World Cup, so we can rest and then come back.”