Hull City vs Blackpool. Sky Bet Championship.
MKM StadiumAttendance10,189.
Report and highlights from the Sky Bet Championship clash between Hull City and Blackpool at the MKM Stadium as Tom Eaves earned a late point for the Tigers after they had been reduced to 10 men due to Lewie Coyle's red card
Tuesday 28 September 2021 23:13, UK
Tom Eaves' late goal denied Blackpool a third victory on the spin as 10-man Hull rescued a 1-1 draw at the MKM Stadium.
Shayne Lavery's cute finish after 42 minutes looked to have sealed three Championship points for the visitors.
An away victory then seemed assured after 80 minutes when Hull captain Lewie Coyle was sent off for a second bookable offence.
But Eaves, a second-half substitute for Andy Cannon, salvaged a point for the struggling hosts when he smashed home Keane Lewis-Potter's precise cross from the left after 84 minutes.
Hull won Sky Bet League One at a canter last season but they have found life back in the Championship an ordeal and have not won since the opening day of the campaign.
Blackpool, by contrast, have looked much more at home following promotion via the play-offs but they will leave East Yorkshire wondering how it went wrong after Coyle's sending-off.
Torrential downpours admittedly blighted the flow of the game for much of the evening but the visitors adjusted better to the conditions - especially during a drab first half.
But with the game going nowhere, Hull were suddenly energised when goalkeeper Chris Maxwell carelessly gifted possession inside his area with a misplaced pass.
Forward Mallik Wilks dithered and should have at least seized upon that error - though his ponderous team-mates were also flat-footed where it mattered.
That attacking naivety proved costly when a controlled Blackpool side gained the upper hand through Lavery.
Neat central interplay on the edge of Hull's penalty area created room for Ryan Wintle to pass to Demetri Mitchell on the left flank.
Mitchell's cross was perfect, yet Lavery still did really well to half-volley into the roof of the net.
Hull showed greater urgency after the restart but they remained weak and predictable inside the final third.
With the hosts finally committing more men forward, the game became stretched and Blackpool should have cashed in on the hour.
Lavery, given time and space, fired over the crossbar from the edge of the penalty area following good work from Keshi Anderson.
Hull manager Grant McCann rightly made changes after that miss, such was his side's lack of quality.
Once Coyle was shown a second yellow card for a poor foul after 80 minutes, they could well have folded.
But with the game seemingly up, Eaves somehow found space inside the Blackpool penalty area to convert Lewis-Potter's sweet cross with his left foot.
In a frenetic finale, Hull substitute Tyler Smith might even have given his side a surprise victory but his strike from distance was well stopped by Maxwell.
Hull's Grant McCann: "I hope it drives the players on to a new lease of life from now on. If we can keep creating opportunities and be positive, things will hopefully change. We dug it out and I think we deserved a point. Our performance levels have been good and I'm a big believer things will turn around.
"You can either hide under a rock or you can get on with it. We're learning on the job but I thought we controlled the game for large spells. Credit to the players. They stuck together and we could have won it."
Blackpool's Neil Critchley: "I feel angry, if I'm honest. I didn't like us at all in the second half - I thought we were far too passive and I felt they were going to score. We limited them to very few clear-cut opportunities but we stopped doing what we were doing in the first half. Our counter-attack play in the second half was diabolical. We allowed them to come back into this game and, in this league, you get punished.
"There's not many times I've lost my temper but I think this was justified. We've only got ourselves to blame. When you have the opportunities to make games 2-0, you have to take them. If these players want to stay at this level and improve we have to be better than that. We should have won this game - points are precious in this league."
