If Jamie Vardy is Leicester’s diamond in the rough, Hull’s Sam Clucas is making a case for being the gem the Midlands club failed to polish.
While Vardy is grabbing national headlines with his goalscoring feats, Clucas is becoming an increasing influence in Hull’s bid to return to the Premier League at the first time of asking. Clucas, like Vardy, has emerged from obscurity. Leicester released him as a 16-year-old but he has re-emerged via stop-offs at the Glenn Hoddle Academy in Spain, Mansfield and Chesterfield to become one of the first names on Steve Bruce’s team sheets.
Here, Clucas, now 25, was orchestrating attack after attack down Hull’s left and scored for the second match in a row – the crucial second midway through the second half that effectively sealed victory against a promotion rival – to preserve Hull’s position at the top of the Championship.
Combined with their exemplary defensive record – since Tomer Hemed’s goal for Brighton condemned them to their last defeat on 12 September, Hull have conceded only four times in 1,195 minutes – the tireless endeavours of Clucas, a £1.3m summer signing, and his fellow midfielders have provided a clinical response to relegation last May.
“How refreshing it is to see how someone who didn’t get snapped up earlier in his career do so well for himself,” said Bruce. “At the moment, pound for pound he’s been a terrific buy. He’s got the hunger too, and that’s why I think he’s got a big future. Sometimes players from big academies have that taken away from them but he’s had to fight and scrap the hard way, and you can see the way he plays that he has determination.”
Clucas played a part in Hull’s best two chances while the game remained deadlocked: winning possession in Boro territory to instigate the 26th-minute chance that Ahmed Elmohamady spurned one on one with Dimitrios Konstantopoulos, and then delivering a corner that the Egyptian met with a glancing header to send the ball narrowly wide. It also required Konstantopoulos’s fingertips to divert a Clucas free-kick for a corner.
Hull came into the contest boasting an 11-game unbeaten run, including the elimination of top-flight pair Swansea and Leicester on the way to a maiden League Cup quarter-final appearance, and were barely troubled by a team that ousted Manchester United from the same competition.
Things might have been different had David Nugent accepted Boro’s one clear-cut chance on the quarter hour. But, having been slipped in behind a revamped Hull defence by Diego Fabbrini’s cute pass, he shanked his shot.
It was the only serious breach of a backline superbly marshalled by Michael Dawson and including Harry Maguire on full league debut 16 months after signing from Sheffield United.
At the other end, Hull were a hive of invention. They went ahead when Elmohamady threaded a teasing cross between the visitors’ central defenders and Mohamed Diamé applied a first-time finish without breaking stride.
It was confirmed that Aitor Karanka will endure an unhappy second anniversary on Teesside when David Meyler’s shot was redirected by an instinctive touch from Clucas to leave Konstantopoulos flat-footed. And Tom Huddlestone provided the pièce de résistance when he rifled in a 20-yarder eight minutes from time.
