Hull City Hall's Sergej Jakirovic: From Championship to Premier League Challenge
The sun was bouncing off the stone of Hull City Hall when Sergej Jakirovic stepped out onto the balcony and turned a survival brief into a punchline.
“I only had one task before the season – to stay in the Championship … I failed. We’re going to the Premier League!” he roared to 40,000 supporters crammed into the square below, a bank holiday crowd drunk on a story nobody saw coming.
Forty-eight hours earlier, Hull had still been clinging to the dream. Then came Oli McBurnie, late and ruthless at Wembley, his goal sealing a 1-0 win over Middlesbrough in the Championship playoff final and dragging the club into the top flight. This from a side that, in 2024-25, stayed out of League One on goal difference. From the brink of the third tier to the Premier League in a year. It felt less like a promotion, more like sleight of hand.
Jakirovic, the Bosnian coach with the booming laugh and the storyteller’s timing, became the man with the alchemist’s touch.
From miracle-makers to relegation certainties
Three months on, the bunting has gone and the odds have hardened. Hull, back in the Premier League for a fourth time since 2008, are being treated as cannon fodder.
Bookmakers have them nailed to the bottom. Pundits have queued up to write them off. On a podcast this week, former England forwards Carlton Cole and Joe Cole took turns to sneer at their chances. “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 words travelled fast. So did the anger among Hull fans.
Jakirovic, though, met the storm with the same energy he brought to that balcony. Speaking before Manchester United’s visit to the MKM Stadium on Saturday lunchtime, the 49-year-old was grinning.
“I’m buzzing,” he said. No shrug, no caution. Just relish.
“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.
“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.”
The task is stripped down to a number. Forty. The route to get there is anything but simple.
“Stupid and disrespectful”
For a city often used as a punchline, Hull’s promotion cut through the cynicism. Jakirovic has given people in Hull a reason to square their shoulders, to push back against the easy jokes.
So when the Coles mocked his team, he did not let it slide.
“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.”
The line hung in the air: we’re not here by accident. For Jakirovic, who has lived through far harsher realities than pundit barbs, this is just another fight.
A club rebuilt at speed
Behind the noise, Hull have been busy trying to assemble a squad that can cope with the jump in class. Chairman Acun Ilicali, as high-profile off the pitch as many of his players on it, has gone hard into the market.
Eleven new signings have arrived, the club’s transfer record has been broken twice, and the shopping is not done. Some of those recruits are already in the treatment room. Others are still finding their bearings. The whole thing has been labelled “scattergun” by critics.
Jakirovic sees a different picture.
“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.
“Mr Chairman and I have had a very good connection since our first meeting and we do everything together. In all decisions, we are always speaking and trying to improve our team in many ways.”
This is not the image of a club stumbling into the Premier League through a side door. It is a club racing to build a squad on the move, hoping the foundations set last season can hold under a far heavier load.
War, perspective and a calm mind
Jakirovic’s composure is not an act. It was forged long before he set foot in Yorkshire.
Born in Mostar in Bosnia and Herzegovina, then part of Yugoslavia, he grew up in Metkovic in Croatia. His childhood was marked by the Balkan wars of the 1990s: running from fighter planes, diving for shelter as bombs fell. Those memories are never far away, and they colour how he sees everything that has followed.
His playing career took him across Slovakia, Slovenia and Bulgaria, before he turned to management. Hull is his eighth club in nine years as a coach, a restless journey that finally brought him to England last summer.
“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 from the first whistle against Manchester United. The odds say Hull will go straight back down. The pundits say they are already gone.
Jakirovic has heard it all before. The only response that matters now will come on the pitch – and in a season framed as a doomed mission, how many more miracles does he have left?
