Hull City v Queens Park Rangers - Tigers told just where they have been going wrong

Had the Tigers managed to hold onto their lead(s) in the four matches where they have failed to do so then they would find themselves joint-top of the table, alongside West Bromwich Albion and Nottingham Forest.

In an extremely tight division where just five points separate third position from 12th, the margins are finer than fine.

They could sit much, much higher, but the reality of City’s situation is that despite a reasonably bright start to life under Grant McCann, they occupy 16th spot, closer to the relegation zone than a play-off berth.

While the manager is by no stretch of the imagination downbeat when considering how his new club have begun 2019-20, recent arrival George Honeyman is all too aware that there is work to be done.

“We’re not where we want to be in the league,” said the former Sunderland midfielder, who arrived at the KCOM Stadium from Wearside in August.

“It’s a results-based game, but our performances – apart from maybe against Huddersfield – have all been pretty good. We feel like we’ve deserved a few more, but that’s football.

“Sometimes you don’t get what you deserve and we’re desperate to climb that league and get to where we wanna be.

“We want to go on a little run again. We’re disappointed that the run of six games unbeaten has come to an end, but now let’s go on a winning run and not just focus on being unbeaten.”

Manager McCann underlined to his players just how much better off they could be when he broke down exactly where they had thrown away Championship points, a statistical revelation that Honeyman admits left him shocked. “It was pretty eye-opening to be honest.

“Obviously, you get a feeling of things as well, we’ve conceded a lot of late goals, but to see it in black and white and look at the fact that we’re top of the league in terms of points dropped from winning positions, that’s not a great stat.

“We’re giving ourselves great foundations in games, but we’re not getting over the final hurdle.Hopefully, that’s something we can put right in weeks to come.”

Last time, having gone 1-0 down after 68 minutes at Huddersfield, they went on to concede twice more in the space of less than 15 minutes, something the Tigers will want to avoid when they entertain ninth-placed QPR.

“The first goal is so crucial in this league and they were probably playing better than us but I thought we were staying in the game all right and then obviously when they got the first goal I felt that our reaction wasn’t good enough,” he added.

“That’s something that we need to get better at because we can’t just capitulate every time we concede a goal. I think if we’d got a decent result we’d have been looking back on a pretty solid start to the season, but that wasn’t the case and now we just want this game to come as quickly as possible.”