City made it four wins for the season with a fine victory on the road
Barry Cooper Hull City correspondent
05:00, 19 Oct 2025
Kyle Joseph celebrates at Birmingham City(Image: Dan Mullan/Getty Images)
Sergej Jakirovic believes Hull City’s dramatic 3-2 win at Birmingham City will be huge for his players’ growing confidence and self-belief, but wants to see more control from his side.
City claimed their first away win of the season and successive victories for the first time in more than 12 months by inflicting a first home loss on the Blues in 30 games.
An enthralling affair saw the Tigers lead early through a Jack Robinson own goal, before he was later sent off after Jay Stansfield had levelled, and Regan Slater’s stunning header made it 2-1 before the break.
Slater’s first goal since Stoke City away last September came moments after a mass brawl between both sets of players and benches, and when Joe Gelhardt made it 3-1 in stoppage time, the game looked to have finally been put to bed, but the hosts fought back with Stansfield’s penalty to set up a nervy finale.
The three points, backing up the point against Preston North End and victory over Sheffield United, sets City up nicely for the visit of Leicester City on Tuesday night.
“It’s a huge impact for us, self-confidence, whatever, because this league is very difficult. You can see strange results every weekend, so it’s very important for the table,” Jakirovic told Hull Live.
“It’s very good because Birmingham played very well. I’m very pleased with them (the players) because they put us under pressure a lot, so I congratulate them. They lost the game, but if they continue like this, they will be very high in the table.”
While City were second best for parts of the contest, their ability to fight and scrap impressed their head coach, as did their ability to kill the game off, albeit far later than it should have been.
“Congratulations to my boys for 90 minutes of fighting and running. Everything that one football game can offer because it was very difficult, especially in the first half,” he confessed.
“Birmingham were better on the ball, they made a lot of problems on our left side, but we made one good action when Oli passed for Kyle. This is the first action I think in the game, in the first half, and we scored the goal to 1-0 up, but then we didn’t have so much ball in our possession.
“We didn’t even try to play what we prepared during the week. I don’t know the reason. We will see that, but fighting, running, everything, until this incident on the touchline, maybe we used this. Birmingham maybe lost focus and rhythm in the game, and then we used that score through Slater to make it 2-1.
“Then, in the half-time, we took Akintola out, and we tried to put more muscles, more dual players inside with (Matt) Crooksy. Maybe Birmingham’s red card helped us because we struggled a lot in the middle zone, and this is something that we need to improve.
“When they lost one player, even then, we didn’t have good control of the play, especially in possession, because we just tried to kick the ball out; this is not good. Some counter-attacks we have to finish better, we must finish better, and maybe finish this game earlier.
“Then 3-1 Joffo(Gelhardt), and then the penalty. I see every weekend a lot of challenges, duels like this, but God knows. We have to respect the referee’s decision.
“In the end, we are very happy because we took three points away. We didn’t do this for a long time, and now we have two wins in a row, which is great for us and a good recovery and concentration now on Leicester.”
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