Hull City’s Premier League Journey: From Survival to Ambition

On a scorching spring bank holiday in Hull, Sergej Jakirovic stepped out on to the balcony of City Hall and turned a survival brief into a punchline. Below him, 40,000 supporters filled Queen Victoria Square, still hoarse from Wembley.

“I only had one task before the season – to stay in the Championship … I failed. We’re going to the Premier League!” he roared, the line landing like a well‑timed volley. The crowd erupted. Hull’s improbable climb was complete.

Forty‑eight hours earlier, Oli McBurnie had written the key line in the script, his late goal edging out Middlesbrough 1-0 in the Championship playoff final. That single strike dragged Hull from the brink of League One a year earlier to the top flight, one of the most unlikely ascents English football has seen in years.

In 2024-25, Hull survived on goal difference. Now they were heading for the Premier League. Somehow, the man billed as a stopgap had turned alchemist.

From balcony euphoria to survival fight

Three months on from those wild scenes, the mood has shifted from party to trial. The Premier League waits, and the bookmakers are merciless. Hull have been installed as relegation certainties, a punchline in pre-season predictions rather than a puzzle to be solved.

Pundits have joined in. On a podcast this week, former England pair Carlton Cole and Joe Cole dismissed their chances with a sneer. “Hull are gone, man,” Joe Cole said. “They have spent £70m and I’d be stunned if they stay up. They have come in through the back door, they’ve slipped in.”

The message was clear: enjoy the day trips to Old Trafford and Anfield. You won’t be here long.

Jakirovic, as ever, chose defiance over dejection. Ahead of Manchester United’s visit to the MKM Stadium on Saturday lunchtime, the 49‑year‑old cut a buoyant figure.

“I’m buzzing,” he said. No hint of dread. No sense of a man cowed by the scale of the task. “Of course there’s a very big gap between the Championship and Premier League. We’re up against the best teams, players and managers and I’ve seen all the predictions. But it’s a great motivation to prove them wrong because we don’t have anything to lose.”

The message to his players was just as stark. Last season’s miracle? Filed away. “What we did last season was a very big achievement, but this is football and what happened yesterday doesn’t matter any more. We want to improve and show that we can develop to do even better as a team – and of course we need another miracle to survive. It will be an even bigger achievement than winning promotion if we manage to stay up. We need 40 points, so everything is very clear.”

Forty points. One number. One target. No illusions.

“Stupid and disrespectful”

If the wider football world sees Hull as cannon fodder, the city sees something very different. Under Jakirovic, Hull has started to walk a little taller, a place long used to lazy punchlines suddenly finding a team that mirrors its stubbornness.

So when the Coles mocked Hull’s chances, the backlash from Tigers fans was instant and fierce. The head coach was no less blunt.

“It was stupid and disrespectful towards the club and players because we earned everything on the pitch – nobody gave us anything for free,” he said. “It’s not fair, especially when it’s coming from ex-players who know how hard players work to reach the Premier League.

“If they were in my position they would fight, so it’s easy to say we’ll finish 20th, but can they bet on that? They can put everything on that or they can lose, so we will see. But we’re not here by accident.”

That last line hung in the air. Not here by accident. Not prepared to be a prop in someone else’s prediction.

A bold rebuild, and a restless market

Behind the scenes, Hull have not acted like a club content just to make up the numbers. Chairman Acun Ilicali has thrown his weight – and his wallet – behind the project. He has already sanctioned 11 new signings, breaking the club’s transfer record twice in the process. Several of those recruits are injured, the squad still something of a jigsaw, yet the shopping is not done.

The recruitment drive has drawn criticism, some branding it scattergun. Jakirovic sees it differently, but he does not pretend it is complete.

“We’re expecting three or four more players,” he said. “We’ve signed some good players with potential, but I’m also aware that they need more time to adapt and build chemistry with the team.”

The relationship between coach and owner, so often the weak point at newly promoted clubs, has become one of Hull’s strengths. Ilicali has already stated he will stand by Jakirovic even if Hull go down, a rare public vote of faith in a division where panic usually arrives by Christmas.

“Mr Chairman and I have had a very good connection since our first meeting and we do everything together,” Jakirovic explained. “In all decisions, we are always speaking and trying to improve our team in many ways.”

It is an alliance built on ambition and risk. Hull are not edging into the Premier League quietly; they are kicking the door open and seeing who blinks.

A life shaped by war, not relegation battles

If Jakirovic sounds unusually calm about the storm coming his way, his background explains it. Hull’s rise last season – the club’s fourth promotion to the Premier League since 2008 – captured attention, but the man at the centre of it carries a story that stretches far beyond football.

Born in Mostar in Bosnia and Herzegovina, then part of Yugoslavia, he grew up in Metkovic in Croatia. His childhood was scarred by the Balkan wars of the 1990s: running from fighter planes, diving for shelter, living with the constant threat of violence.

That kind of upbringing hardens a person. It also shrinks the scale of modern problems. A relegation fight is not nothing, but to Jakirovic it is not everything.

His playing career took him across central and eastern Europe, with spells in Slovakia, Slovenia and Bulgaria. He learned to adapt, to move, to rebuild. Management followed, a restless journey that brought him to Hull last summer, his eighth club in nine years.

“I always sleep like a baby because this is just sport at the end of the day,” he said with a smile. “I have to be fresh on Saturday; I also need to show my potential and prove that I can handle this stage. And I don’t have any doubt because I’ve showed already that I’m capable of doing some great things.”

The Premier League will test that belief to its limits. The bookmakers say Hull are doomed. The pundits say they have slipped in through the back door.

Jakirovic looks at the same door and sees an opening. The question now is simple: can the man who already delivered one miracle conjure another when the lights are brightest and the margin for error vanishes?