REPORT: Wigan Athletic 0 Hull City 5

Wigan Athletic suffered their third 5-0 drubbing in their last six home matches as Hull City cruised to victory at the DW.
Jamie Proctor in action against HullJamie Proctor in action against Hull
Jamie Proctor in action against Hull

The Tigers were famously crushed 8-0 on their last trip here last July, but the effects of the last seven months have clearly had a far more damaging impact on Latics than their promotion-chasing opponents.

Mallik Wilks did most of the damage with a brilliant hat-trick, with Josh Magennis and Keane Lewis-Potter getting the others.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

And the sad reality is the scoreline flattered Latics, with the visitors seeing another goal chalked off for offside, and Magennis also hitting a post from point-blank range.

As it was, the margin of defeat saw Latics slip a place to second-bottom of League One, with the small matter of league leaders Lincoln City arriving in town at the weekend.

The opening quarter was nip and tuck, with Latics if anything having the better of it against the Tigers, who'd named Wiganer Jordan Flores on their bench.

Great stuff from Viv Solomon-Otabor saw the winger - in for his first start for four months - weaving his way into the box, with his shot taking a deflection off a defender and into the side-netting.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

And Latics were punished at the other end as Hull took the lead on the 27-minute mark.

Again it was a poor goal to concede from a Latics point of view, Wilks allowed to turn far too easily before firing through Jamie Jones from a tight angle.

Before Latics could dust themselves down, the visitors had doubled their advantage within five minutes.

Once more Wilks was the scorer, with the forward not appearing to catch it all that well on his weaker right foot, but it rolled beyond the right hand of Jones and clipped the inside of the far post on the way in.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

It was almost 3-0 when Jones could only parry out Magennis' free-kick, and George Honeyman squared it for ex-Latics loanee Reece Burke to tap in.

Thankfully for Latics, the offside flag was up, and they had another let-off when Magennis planted a free header wide of the mark from point-blank range.

Latics somehow got through to the break without further damage, and they knew they had to start the second half in the ascendancy if they were to have any chance of getting back into it.

However, any hope of that was extinguished within four minutes of the restart, when an unmarked Lewis-Potter nodded home from close range.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

There was initial confusion as the flag went up immediately on the far side, but replays showed he was clearly on - and the referee overruled his colleague after a brief discussion.

By this time it was already damage limitation, and even that wasn't looking good, with Hull grabbing number four within four minutes.

Latics had already dodged a bullet when Magennis hit the post from three yards, but the ex-Bolton man made amends when he waltzed through the defence and slotted home past Jones.

Latics made a triple change to try and mix it up a bit, throwing on Luke Robinson, Callum Lang and Joe Dodoo for Solomon-Otabor, Dan Gardner and Will Keane.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

But the visitors were in total control at this point, and Wilks completed his hat-trick from distance with Jones again unable to get a hand on it.

There were still 25 minutes still to play, with Hull probably eyeing up a spot of revenge after their 8-0 drubbing on this ground barely seven months ago.

And despite Curtis Tilt suffering a painful-looking shoulder injury - after Latics had used their fifth sub - the home side managed to negotiate the rest of the game with their goal intact.

Get 20% off our sports subscription package and stay up to date with all the latest Wigan Athletic news with a year’s subscription to WiganToday for less than 9p a day. Use promo code TRANSFER20