Sergej Jakirovic told his Hull players they must stay humble after they continued their perfect start to life back in the Premier League with a 1-0 win away to old Championship rivals Coventry.
Liam Millar came off the bench to win it with a swift counter attack in the 82nd minute, holding his nerve to slot home a little over five minutes after squandering a similar chance.
Coming off last weekend’s 2-0 win over Manchester United, the Championship play-off winners are in dreamland as they look to upset overwhelming odds predicting a swift return to the second tier.
“An excellent victory, unbelievable,” Jakirovic said. “But I think that we played good, we played compact, solid, aggressive.
“It’s big confidence for us as a team, as individuals, for me as well because I don’t have experience at this level. I have my own experience from a previous club but still you can learn something no matter how long you’ve been in the game.
“We have a lot of work to do. We need to stay humble and work hard like always.”
Millar grabbed the winner in a week in which the Canada international has been linked with a move back to the Championship, reportedly as a potential makeweight in a deal for Stoke’s Sorba Thomas — links the manager did not entirely shut down.
“Of course, he’s our player,” he said when asked if he wanted the 26-year-old to stay.
But he then added: “If we bring in I don’t know, two, three wingers and we have a problem with [numbers] one has to go. Who, I don’t know.”
However, Jakirovic did dismiss reports that left-back Ryan Giles, who played the full 90 minutes, is poised to join Burnley.
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“Of course [he will stay,] he said. “[Unless] Burnley will pay £20million and Ryan Giles comes to me and says ‘I want to go’, he can go. But he is a Premier League player now.”
For Frank Lampard and Coventry this was a big setback as their first home Premier League match in 25 years, and first at the CBS Arena, ended in defeat.
After last week’s 3-0 loss at Arsenal Lampard could say his side would not be judged on results away to the reigning champions, but a result at home to a side who finished below them in the Championship last term is another matter.
“It’s disappointing, clearly,” Lampard said. “It’s a game we wanted to win, we controlled a lot of the possession but not with our usual sort of playing forward, the dynamic sort of way about us.
“(There was) not enough risk-taking at the top of the pitch and we were not our usual selves. You leave yourselves open for a counter-attack, a couple of counter-attacks they had to be fair, but counter attacks that you should deal with at source, so lessons to be learnt on that one.
“The lesson today is don’t expect anything in the Premier League. There’s 36 games left, we’re two games in. It depends how you want to react to a defeat and that’s always the case.”
