HULL CITY manager Sergej Jakirovic called the Carabao Cup an opportunity for his squad after his Premier League side beat Stoke City 5-4 on penalties after a 1-1 draw in the second round.

The Tigers caused the shock of the opening weekend in the Premier League after beating Manchester United 2-0 and followed it up by reaching the third round for the first time in six years despite making 11 changes.

Hidemasa Morita, Lucas Gourna-Douath, Lucas Herrington and Jens Hjerto-Dahl were among those handed bows by the Tigers.

Robert Bozenik opened the scoring for the hosts before the Tigers equalised through Kieran Dowell on the stroke of half time.

Hull City manager Sergej Jakirovic applauds the fans after the Carabao Cup second round match at the bet365 Stadium, Stoke-on-Trent. Picture date: Tuesday August 25, 2026.

placeholder image — Hull City manager Sergej Jakirovic applauds the fans after the Carabao Cup second round match at the bet365 Stadium, Stoke-on-Trent. Picture date: Tuesday August 25, 2026.

With neither side able to force a winner, Hull ran out winners on penalties with Mohamed Belloumi netted the winning spot-kick.

City exited the competition at the same stage last year, losing to Wrexham on penalties, before beating Blackburn on the penalties in the FA Cup.

Jakirovic said: "We broke one more record, so now I have two penalty shootouts in a row!

"It was an opportunity for other players to play, and after Manchester United there was a lot of excitement, a lot of stress, a few problems with some players so I will use this competition to give other players a chance because you never know when we will need them.

Hull City's Mohamed Belloumi celebrates after scoring his winning penalty in the shoot out after the Carabao Cup second round match at Stoke.

"We used this game for Morita, for Gourna-Douath, for Jens (Hjerto-Dahl), also Abdulkadir (Omur), (David) Akintola, also Cody (Drameh). For young Herrington it was great for adaptation to English football – intensity, dynamic, everything we need for the future.

"Akintola could have had a hat-trick but he showed a lot of effort, energy, he tried to press with Dowell and just missed at least one goal.”

Jakirovic also spoke about the future of goalscorer Dowell, who only featured 15 times for the Tigers last season.

He added: "If we sign more players we will have at least 25, so there is also a danger that we cannot register some players, so we have to sit tomorrow to see how many players will come and then what we need to do.

“Until now he’s with us, and we will see with the board and the chairman and see what we need to do.”

Stoke manager Mark Robins was happy with his team’s performance after they took the Premier League newcomers to a shootout.

He said: “I thought we played alright. There were hardly any clear-cut openings in the game other than one or two mistakes, they’d had a bit of a sight of the goal, we’d had a bit of a sight of the goal.

“Our goal was really good. The movement was brilliant in the box and the cross was really good, the cross finds him and he (Bozenik) scores again against Hull.

“I want to see us grow in real confidence and then try and boss games, and I thought we bossed the game. We were pretty good.”