Sergej Jakirovic says Hull City 'played like it was Christmas' as Sheffield Wednesday show progress
Sergej Jakirovic said Hull City's 2-2 draw at Sheffield Wednesday was “perfect” because his Tigers side were anything but.
Hull were well-below their best against an Owls side who utterly dominated the early stages and took the lead twice, only for their inexperienced bench to catch up with them in the end, as they had to settle for a draw.
The result leaves Hull fourth in the Championship, whilst bottom-of-the-Championship Wednesday's fate was sealed long ago.
“I'm satisfied because we didn't play good, without energy – we played like today was Christmas,” said Jakirovic, whose side equalised through Mohamed Belloumi's first goal since rupturing his anterior cruciate ligaments, and Matt Crooks.
“We were 10, 15 from the (Wednesday) players, we were at 20 per cent. But again we showed good character because twice we were down and we came back with two goals and in the end we put on everything we had offensively from the bench and tried to score a third.”
Wednesday led through Svante Ingelsson, then Bailey Cadamarteri.
“I think it was generally a strong performance,” said manager Henrik Pedersen.
“We were very compact defensively, on the ball we were strong and we had a good intensity and a good dynamic on the ball.
“We have spoken before about playing too much in front of the opposition but we found a better balance with Pierce (Charles, in his distribution) and we showed a good progression.
“Then the last 10, 12 minutes of the first half we dropped in intensity and in the second half it was an equal game.”