Sergej Jakirovic Wins Manager of the Month for Hull's Premier League Success

Sergej Jakirovic has turned Hull City’s Premier League return into the story of August – and now he has the Barclays Manager of the Month award to prove it.

The 49-year-old, who dragged Hull up via the Championship playoffs last season, has hit the top flight running with two wins from two in their first month back among the elite. Promotion bounce is one thing. What Hull have produced under him already feels like something sharper, more deliberate.

A 2-0 victory over Manchester United on the opening weekend set the tone. Not a smash-and-grab, not a nervous backs-to-the-wall survival act, but a controlled, “sensational” statement that announced Hull’s return after nine years away. Jakirovic set his team up to confront the occasion, not shrink from it, and United paid the price.

The momentum carried into a tense, nervy contest with fellow newcomers Coventry City. This time, Hull had to grind. The match tightened, the stakes rose, and the game drifted towards stalemate. Then came the late winner that split the promoted pair and underlined a different side to Jakirovic’s work: resilience, belief, and the ability to find a way when the legs are heavy and the clock is against you.

Those two victories have now carried him into club history. Jakirovic becomes only the third Hull manager ever to win the Premier League’s monthly prize, following Phil Brown in September 2008 and Mike Phelan in August 2016. For a club that has spent long stretches outside the spotlight, that list tells its own story about how rare these moments are.

The award also carries a wider significance. Jakirovic is the first Bosnian to be named Barclays Manager of the Month, extending the competition’s roll call of winning coaches to 21 different nations. From his own personal landmark to Hull’s resurgence and the Premier League’s growing global coaching map, his recognition lands on several levels at once.

Two games do not define a season. They do, however, shape a mood. Hull arrived back in the Premier League as playoff winners, expected by many simply to fight for survival. Under Jakirovic, they have started by fighting for something else: respect.