Last weekend witnessed a reasonably lackluster outing by The Tigers away at The Cottage against bottom of the table Fulham on the Thames and if there was ever a banana skin of a game, that was it. Many questions being asked before the game about selection, scratched heads through the game wondering where our signature passion and cohesion was and more questions after the game about the substitutions, what we could or should have done and arguably our worst outing this season with the 1-0 defeat hard to swallow.

But that's Hull City. 33 squad players, 50,000 refs, managers, coaches, trainers, scouts and football experts all wearing black and amber weighing in from all around the world, but still, here we are in 9th place. 3 points from 5th and a positive GD which is not too shabby given the pre season pundit predictions that had us dead and buried before we played Man Utd.

The Brentford Bees who turn up this weekend will be our first encounter in 6 years. A real tale of woe in front of a meagre 10,000 fans back in 2020 when Grant McCann was looking down the barrel of a 5-1 thumping by the full time whistle with Tafazolli netting our only goal on 28 minutes. The line up also included the likes of George Long, Reece Burke, George Honeyman, Josh Magennis and that Hull lad himself, Kean Lewis-Potter.

The same Lewis-Potter that City sold 2 years later, in 2022, to Brentford for around a rumoured £10M on an 8 season long contract and the player that put Brentford 1-0 up against Liverpool, at The GTECH Community Stadium last Saturday only to see his side walk away 2-1 down at the end of their game for their first loss in 6 games.

No doubt KLP will be front and centre for selection on his first visit back to the MKM (or KCOM as it was then) since his move 4 years ago and it will fall to the honour of Coyle or Norton-Cuffy at right back to put the shackles on the pacey, tricky left flank player who is an adept wing back, and also has springs on his heels who can outjump many a tall player for his 5' 7", slight of build stature. The other dangermen are Igor Thiago, who is the club's highest paid player with an XG of 1.8 and Mamadou Sangaré the industrious play maker and highest contributor. One for Reagan to keep a sharp eye on.

At the end of the Fulham game, Vaz took a nasty clip to the back of his Achilles from Sessegnon late in stoppage time which he saw the red card for but thankfully the concern of a long term lay off for Robinio has been put to bed after he's been out on the training ground showing no lasting signs of an injury and all, it seems is well. Mendy still a reported week away so the selection options appear to the same as game number 7 as at the time of writing.

So now with an extra day for recouperation, given that we play at 2pm on Sunday and not Saturday it's down to Sergej to look back at what he considers needs tweaking from last week, if anything. Brentford are a very different question to Fulham so will Crooks be a safe bet in midfield to spoil a side who are sat in 6th place and just a point above us and are draw specialists? It's worth noting that outside the top 5, Brentford are the highest scoring side in the Premier League so our defence needs to be on double guard and at the very least, the best players in the best position, which was questioned at Fulham with Norton-Cuffy selected at LB when there were 2 orthodox LB's left on the bench in Giles and Stroud.

I'm expecting a very hard game but think the players will lift themselves in front of 24,400 or so City fans which the average attendance has leveled out at so far and if Sergej, gets back to basics which has served him well during his Tiger's tenure I think we could just nick this. It's about time Olly was rewarded for his recent box to box striker work over the last weeks and think, if Giles is playing, this could be his game of arrival on the score sheet.

1-0 City. 34 minutes.

My line up would be.

Tzoli

Coyle. Ajayi. Herrington. Egan. Giles.

Belloumi Slater. Thomas.

Gelhardt.

McBurnie.

The Forecast...

Slight chance (8%) of rain, cloudy but sunny, 12 degrees. 100% chance of expectation and good possibility of 3 points.
UTT.