Hull City 4 Derby County 2: That's entertainment but Tigers overdo the jeopardy

The Tigers ended a sequence of four straight home matches without a win, but dreadful defending made it a loss more uncomfortable than their classy forwards deserved.

They got away with a 4-2 win over Derby County, they might not against other teams.

This, though, was football as owner Ilicali likes it – frenetic, forward-thinking and laden with jeopardy. If you could always guarantee results like this, everyone would like it.

But you cannot, and as the away fans enjoyed pointing out, there were plenty of empty seats as home supporters opted out of the fun.

As they showed in the early stages, theirs is a good attacking side, with a lethal finisher in Oli McBurnie. There would be classy strikes too from John Egan and Lewis Koumas but some of the play was watch-from-behind-the-sofa match.

In the final equation, it all worked out just fine.

The way Hull started the game, it looked like their third straight defeat on Saturday had shocked them into a response.

The early football was so fluent, and although the opening goal was hardly one to hang in the Louvre, nine minutes in, it set things up nicely.

But they were undermined by awful defending, twice conceding similar goals before half time to hand at least some of the initiative back to the Rams.

With Patrick Agyemang booked for persistent fouling inside two just minutes and a string of early Tigers corners, it looked like Hull might break the miserable four-match sequence they came into the game with.

Even a mishit Joe Gelhardt cross came close to scoring, dropping onto the roof of the net.

McBurnie nicked the ball off Matt Clarke, exchanged passes with Gelhardt and won a corner Liam Millar had a shot blocked from.

The breakthrough was scruffy but deserved, Millar and Ryan Giles surging down the left to win a corner. Callum Elder was credited with the final touch to beat Josh Vickers.

"One-nil to the empty seats" gloated the Hull fans in response to Derby derision at the 20,391 attendance.

But in their first spell of pressure all night, Derby snatched an 18th-minute equaliser. Ivor Pandur pushed a Lewis Travis shot into danger his team-mates did not sense, presenting centre-back Forsyth with a tap in to score for the first time since April.

Granted, he was offside when Travis shot, but it was a dreadful goal to concede.

Suddenly, Derby had been injected with confidence.

Agyemang outfought Egan and came inside, but off balance, he shot off target.

Not that Hull lost all belief, Giles burst forward and had a shot smothered by Travis, and Gelhardt was quick to shoot when McBurnie nodded the ball back to him but his half-volley went wide.

McBurnie restored the lead with a classy goal, former Tiger Elder again playing an unwitting part as he served the ball to Gelhardt. McBurnie took the pass with his bac to goal, spun and powered a shot past Vickers.

Elder did not reappear for the second half.

But within three minutes, Hull had given over another goal.

Pandur saved with his feet from Agyemang, then a minute later he parried from the same player and again no one was marking the Derby player the ball fell to. Sam Szmodics punished them.

The second goal seemed to do a lot more psychological damage than the first, as Hull never looked quite the same side again.

Losing Giles to a hamstring injury just eight minutes after the restart hardly helped either.

Agyemany put an early overhead kick over the bar when Forsyth flicked on a long throw-in, and Clarke volleyed wide at a corner Pandur came from but did not collect. Former Sheffield United loanee Ben Brereton Diaz volleyed over when another long throw was headed to him by a defender.

Pandur had to come off his line to save from Bobby Clark when Charlie Hughes gave the ball away cheaply, the midfield won it back and immediately turned it over again.

Although Kyle Joseph had headed a chance wide, Hull offered too little back until in the 75th minute, controlled McBurnie's pass and turned and shot like a centre-forward, not a centre-back.

Derby threw on a second hulking centre-forward in former Barnsley man Carlton Morris, so Hull responded with a third centre-back in Paddy McNair, who put Szmodics under enough pressure to stop him sweeping in a left-wing cross in the 84th minute.

But a minute later the substitute who came on with him, Koumas, kept his cool when played through by Ami Hadziahmetovic via a Joseph flick-on to make it 4-2.

It was fun and it was successful. If it was always like this, there would not be an empty seat in the house.

Hull City: Pandur; Coyle, Egan, Hughes, Giles (Drameh 53); Slater, Hadziahmetovic; Joseph, Gelhardt (Koumas 81), Millar (McNair 81); McBurnie (Dowell 89).

Unused substitutes: Lundstram, Phillips, Famewo, Crooks, McCarthy.

Derby County: Vickers; Elder (Ward HT), Forsyth, Clarke, Murkin; Ozoh (Brewster 74), Travis; Brereton Diaz (Morris 75), Szmodics, Clark; Agyemang.

Unused substitutes: O'Donnell, Sanderson, Fraulo, Eames, Gordon, Allen.

Referee: A Herczeg (County Durham).