{"id":675175,"date":"2026-09-06T10:17:18","date_gmt":"2026-09-06T10:17:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/675175\/"},"modified":"2026-09-06T10:17:18","modified_gmt":"2026-09-06T10:17:18","slug":"hull-teammate-had-telling-quip-for-motm-john-egan-after-heroics-v-villa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/675175\/","title":{"rendered":"Hull Teammate Had Telling Quip For MOTM John Egan After Heroics v Villa"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>John Egan was once again immense at the heart of the defence as Hull City continued their incredible start to Premier League life with a 0-0 draw against Aston Villa on Saturday evening.<\/p>\n<p>The Tigers were widely tipped for relegation, having drastically overperformed compared to all statistical metrics in their Championship promotion campaign last season.<\/p>\n<p>\n        Recommended\n    <\/p>\n<p>                        <a :href=\"https:\/\/www.balls.ie\/football\/article.url\" :title=\"article.title\" :aria-label=\"article.title\" class=\"not-prose col-span-2 md:col-span-1 ga-event\" data-category=\"Recommended Article Tracker\" data-action=\"click\" :data-label=\"https:\/\/www.balls.ie\/football\/article.url\" :data-value=\"https:\/\/www.balls.ie\/football\/article.url\"><\/p>\n<p>                                            <img class=\"aspect-video\" width=\"130\" height=\"73\" :src=\"https:\/\/www.balls.ie\/football\/article.image\" :alt=\"'Image for: ' + article.title\" loading=\"lazy\"\/><\/p>\n<p>                        <\/a><\/p>\n<p>However, they remain unbeaten after three games, with seven points from a possible nine to start their first Premier League campaign in ten years.<\/p>\n<p>The <a href=\"https:\/\/www.balls.ie\/football\/manchester-united-hull-city-john-egan-661902\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">opening-day win over Manchester United stunned the league<\/a>, but backing that up with a victory over fellow promoted side Coventry City last weekend was arguably just as significant.<\/p>\n<p>They have now claimed another point against Champions League opposition with a resolute defensive performance against Aston Villa earning them a draw on Saturday.<\/p>\n<p>Most impressive has been Hull&#8217;s resolute defence, with the newcomers yet to concede a Premier League goal.<\/p>\n<p>Crucial to that has been Ireland international John Egan, playing in the top flight for the first time in three years.<\/p>\n<p>He was named Man of the Match from the draw against Aston Villa, and his teammate Ryan Giles had a telling quip for the Irishman in their post-match interview.<\/p>\n<p><strong>John Egan MOTM in Hull draw<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>John Egan spoke to Sky Sports after Hull City&#8217;s 0-0 draw against Aston Villa on Saturday evening.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">&#8220;We&#8217;re a tight-knit group, we work well together!&#8221; <\/p>\n<p>Hear from John Egan and Ryan Giles after their draw against Aston Villa \ud83d\udcaa <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/cceuutNFdX\" rel=\"nofollow\">pic.twitter.com\/cceuutNFdX<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Sky Sports Premier League (@SkySportsPL) <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/SkySportsPL\/status\/2096307424705552481?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" rel=\"nofollow\">September 5, 2026<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>The 33-year-old hailed his teammates for their defensive efforts against Villa and across the opening weekends of the Premier League season.<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>It&#8217;s a good point, a good clean sheet first and foremost. I think both teams had chances.<\/p>\n<p>They&#8217;re a really good team. We had our chances too. I think we finished probably the stronger of the two teams.<\/p>\n<p>Overall, I think it&#8217;s just a really good point for us, yeah.<\/p>\n<p>A lot of work goes into [defensive organisation] on the training pitch. It probably started in the playoffs last year when we moved to that shape. We&#8217;ve a lot of experienced players, who&#8217;ve played a lot of games. It all helps.<\/p>\n<p>We&#8217;ve got lads who want to work together and defend for each other. So far, so good. We just have to keep improving.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>Hull have now claimed results against three very different teams, something which Egan thinks can give them confidence as they adapt to life in the top flight.<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>It&#8217;s huge for our confidence coming up into the Premier League. A good start is important.<\/p>\n<p>We got the win the first day and I think that gave everyone confidence. You see Gile-o, the confidence he&#8217;s playing with going forward, probably one of the best deliveries in the league.<\/p>\n<p>We&#8217;re playing to our strengths, we&#8217;ve got good players in attack, we&#8217;ve got good players who can defend in a block.<\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s about improving now, taking confidence from every result, and on to the next one.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>Ryan Giles, too, has been superb across the opening three weekends, and would have been a worthy candidate for MOTM on Saturday evening.<\/p>\n<p>His quip to John Egan when asked to hand the award over to the Irishman was telling of the esteem Egan&#8217;s Hull teammates hold him in.<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>It&#8217;s an absolute <strong>pleasure<\/strong> to hand this over to you big man, honestly!<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>Hull City&#8217;s next test comes on Tuesday night when they face Sunderland in the EFL Cup third round.<\/p>\n<p>If they can replicate Sunderland&#8217;s Premier League heroics from last season, they will be in the mix to have their greatest-ever top flight season.<\/p>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"John Egan was once again immense at the heart of the defence as Hull City continued their incredible&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":675176,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[3],"tags":[9,10,18,13,14,6,19,17,285512,11,12,15,16,5,7,8],"class_list":["post-675175","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-breaking-news","tag-breakingnews","tag-eire","tag-featured-news","tag-featurednews","tag-headlines","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-john-egan","tag-latest-news","tag-latestnews","tag-main-news","tag-mainnews","tag-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topstories"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/675175","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=675175"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/675175\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/675176"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=675175"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=675175"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=675175"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}