2 weeks Ago By [email protected] (Barry Cooper)
Curtis Davies will be one of the many nervous observers when Hull City face Derby County at the MKM Stadium on Saturday in a huge Championship showdown. Victory for City would ensure their Championship survival, while defeat could mean they go to Portsmouth on the final day in the bottom three and staring relegation in the face. A point would be enough for Ruben Selles' men if Luton Town lose to play-off-chasing Coventry City in the early kick-off.
Three of Davies' former clubs are embroiled in a fascinating battle at the bottom , with City , the Rams and Hatters all vying to secure their survival in the final two games of the campaign. Davies admits Saturday's contest between his two former clubs will be a stressful affair, as it was when the Tigers were beaten 1-0 by Luton last month courtesy of Alfie Jones' freak own goal. "I'll be watching it from behind blinkered eyes, I think it's one of those.
When it gets to that nitty gritty at the end of the season, it's going to be what it's gonna be," the popular former defender told Hull Live. "I'd love to think that all three (former clubs), Luton, Hull City and Derby, can make it out. There's a case for it with the form of the teams, and other teams form just outside slowly falling away.
" Relegation for City would be a disaster in a myriad of ways, and for owner Acun Ilicali , who bought the club in January 2022 with dreams of taking the club back to the Premier League, not League One. While tough for players and supporters, staff behind the scenes are usually the ones who suffer the most when jobs are lost, and it's those people who Davies thinks of, should the worst happen. "That side of it (is important).
And listen, I'm not going to pretend every single player cares about the staff. A lot of players will care about themselves and care about wanting to stay in the highest league they can possibly stay in, and their wages staying on, of course. "But when you're at a family club like Hull City , or the feel that we had at Derby County (during their struggles) was 'we've got to do all we can to keep us in this position, because potentially, the girl in the kitchen, she's the one that's going to lose her job, or one of the guys in the kit room, one of those is going to lose their job.
"It's never the player, is it? So I think you do have a sense of responsibility for the whole club. I don't know if that's just me, as somebody who's been a captain at those clubs and has been well in-depth in both Derby County and Hull City. "You can only control what you control in terms of you've got to go out there and do your best as a football player first and foremost, but if you haven't got that slight of mind of what's going on with the rest of the building and potentially how it can affect them, then for me, it's a really strange position because I can honestly say that every time it's been about relegation, whilst I want to stay in the highest league possible, you do start thinking who's going to lose their jobs.
"Is it a physio, is it a kit man, is it a masseur? You do worry about everyone around you, but like I say, hopefully with that comes a galvanisation of the whole (club), not just the team in terms of the 11 on the pitch or the 25 man squad, but of a training ground, of a whole community within that training ground in order to try and push you on to just do everything in the right way possible to give you the best chance of staying in the league." One benefit City do have compared to those in the bottom three is goal difference, with the Tigers sitting on -9 with Derby, while Luton, Cardiff City and Plymouth Argyle are significantly worse. The one caveat, however, is that Derby have scored more goals than City, so should both teams be level on goal difference come the final day, that would pose a major problem, and Davies recalls a time when his Birmingham City team were relegated that way.
"Goal difference plays such a big part. We look at the goal difference of different clubs and that's a point at this stage because some have got 10 goals better than others, some have got 15 goals better than others and if you're going into a game and thinking, oh, actually, we're going to go level on points with them, but actually you effectively think they're a point ahead. Sometimes you have that psychology of, 'Do we go for the win?' "Do we go for the throat and get the win and try and jump ourselves out that way, because I think it gets to that point now, where the point sometimes isn't going to be good enough.
If you're fortunate enough to be kicking off at three o'clock, you might have seen the early games, you know what the results were in the early games, and then you know what the results are going on elsewhere. "There might be a point that even in the game, someone shouts down from the stands that they're winning at so and so place, so we need to go for the win. That's the kind of situation we're in right now with how tight it is.
"I had a situation when I was at Birmingham City, and it still haunts me to this day, but we went down on the last day of the season. We went to Tottenham, we were drawing the game 1-1, and we were at that point, staying up. What happened is Wolves were playing someone, I think it was Reading at the time, away, and they scored a goal, which meant that they were staying up on goals scored, so we had the same goal difference, but they had scored more goals.
Because of that, myself and Roger Johnson had to go up front trying to get that goal to win the game. We end up losing the game 2-1. We're relegated.
"It does play a part. When you look at it on the day and then they're (your rivals) losing on the day, they're losing 3-0, you're thinking, 'Oh well, with a draw we stay up' and you're doing the right things. That in-game side of it is, 'Oh no, they've scored at this place, then we have to go for it.
' It was a sad day for us, but it does happen, and ultimately it's just about teams trying to avoid it going down to those measures. "You want to be doing what you've done, in terms of the form that teams are starting to pick up now, and you want it to be enough to have taken you out of it. "They all seem to be picking up form at the same time, they're all cancelling each other out, and I think you know when we speak about that Luton Hull City game.
Would the point have been good? Probably for Hull City, it might have been good, but for Luton, not that great. The fact that Luton dragged Hull straight back into it, it's become really fascinating," Don't miss the 1904 Club podcast looking ahead to the big MKM Stadium showdown on Saturday Did you know that you can get daily Tigers news sent straight to your device as soon as it happens through WhatsApp? It's quick and easy to join. Just click this link and select 'Join Community' to get started.
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