Liam Millar scored his first Premier League goal as Hull City made it two wins in two matches. Plus, the red-hot Cyle Larin bagged a brace in a Southampton rout of Millwall. Here’s a look at Canadians in Europe over the weekend.
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Liam Millar, Hull City
Hull’s return to the Premier League opened with a dream last week with a well-deserved 2-0 victory over 20-time English champions Manchester United. Toronto’s Liam Millar played 20 minutes off the bench in the win. How many more points accrued from big clubs over the rest of the season remains to be seen, but it’s entirely possible that, come May, we will look back at that match as one of the reasons why the Tigers avoided the drop.
What should really determine whether or not Hull stays in the top flight for another year is the kind of match the Tigers had this past Saturday. Hull went on the road to take on fellow new boys and last season’s Championship winners, Coventry City. It’s games against teams also expected to be in the relegation fight that will define the season for the Tigers. Take points, ideally full points, from these matches and the odds of staying up increase exponentially. The Tigers did just that on Saturday against the Sky Blues and it was Millar who earned the win.
The match for much of the 90 minutes wasn’t the most exciting of affairs and if one team looked more likely to break the deadlock, it would have been the home side. For much of the first half, Frank Lampard’s Coventry was on the front foot, but the goal just wouldn’t come. It was a roll of the dice from Hull manager Sergej Jakirovic that proved to be decisive.
Millar, in his third season with the Tigers after a move from Basel, came on in the 59th for Elliot Stroud. It was a return to the bench for Millar, who had started the team’s win over Stoke City on penalties in the League Cup midweek. He had a fine chance shortly after his introduction when he was played forward by Oli McBurnie. Cutting down the left, Millar did well to juke inside on Aurele Amenda to make room for a shot, but he dragged his low drive just wide of Carl Rushworth’s post.
In the 82nd minute, Millar finally made his mark. In the Hull half, a Coventry cross was blocked and Mo Belloumi managed to beat Tatsuhiro Sakamoto for possession to break the other way. He perfectly weighted a through ball to meet the run of Millar just inside the Sky Blues half. With a step on Matt Grimes, Millar sprinted at goal. Rushworth came out halfway through the area to cut the angle, but this time he wouldn’t be saved by a wide shot as Millar found paydirt for his first Premier League goal to give the Tigers the 1-0 win.
“It is unbelievable,” Millar told the club website about his first Premier League goa. “I have been dreaming about this moment since I was a kid back home in Canada, and honestly, it is an unbelievable moment for me and my family for all the hard work I have put in over the years.”
While six points from their first two matches has Hull dreaming, a note from history may have them thinking twice just yet. In the history of the Premier League, only three teams who have taken all six points from their first two matches have been relegated the following spring. While that bodes very well for the Tigers, one of those three teams was the Tigers in 2017.
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Cyle Larin, Southampton
Three matches into the new Championship season and Southampton has erased its four-point deduction. Saints now sit on two points following Saturday’s 5-1 thrashing of Millwall. As he has almost every time he’s stepped onto the pitch for Southampton this season, Brampton, Ont.’s Cyle Larin was once again a difference maker. For the first time in nearly five years, Larin bagged himself a brace.
In seeing such a lopsided scoreline, it might come as a surprise that the Lions actually led the match at one point. Some porous defending from Saints led to an early Millwall lead in the 15th minute. Coming down the left, Josh Coburn’s cross to the front of goal was deflected away from Nathan Wood-Gordon. His clearance went as far as Mark Sykes on the edge of the box. With time and space, Sykes’s shot deflected off of Keven Schlotterbeck, giving Daniel Peretz no chance, to make it 1-0.
Saints would fight back 10 minutes later through Larin. From a Southampton free kick, Ryan Manning lofted a beautiful ball to the far post. Larin did well to escape his markers and met it with a powerful header to make it 1-1 in the 25th.
A Finn Azaz goal late in the first half and a Leo Scienza marker from the spot in the 55th would make it 3-1 before Larin got his second. The man affectionately dubbed “The Brampton Bagsman” by the Saints faithful did so with aplomb. Azaz won the ball back inside the Lions half. Falling as he worked through a pair of defenders, Azaz got the ball forward to Larin just inside the D. With the outside of his left boot, Larin nicked the ball over Caleb Turner and then one-timed a volley with his left to beat Max Crocombe with a sensational effort.
Tom Fellows would add another late to round out the win for Saints. Larin now has four goals on the season, level with Middlesbrough’s Will Lankshear for most in the Championship. Remarkably, he already has half of his goals total for Southampton from last season’s 16 matches through three in 2026-2027. His signing on a permanent from Mallorca is already looking like one of the deals of the summer.
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Jacen Russell-Rowe, Toulouse
Jacen Russell-Rowe joined Toulouse last February from Columbus Crew. The Toronto-born forward appeared in 13 matches for Les Violets in the spring of 2025. His lone goal came in a 2-2 draw with Monaco.
Now in his first fill season in Ligue 1, the 23-year-old Toronto FC academy product opened up his account for the new campaign on Saturday as Toulouse was away to Brest. Jens Berthel Askou’s side were coming off of a 2-0 defeat to Lyon in their season opener at home. The first away match of the season would result in the team’s first point.
Just nine minutes into the match, the visitors were on the board. With Brest a little too leisurely on the ball in their own end, Mark McKenzie forced a turnover near midfield. The United States defender headed the ball down to Yann Ghobo, who did well to play Russell-Rowe in behind the Brest backline. Steadying himself with his first touch, Russell-Rowe then thundered in a right-footed volley into the top of the net to make it 1-0. It was a composed finish for the former TFC player.
Kamory Doumbia would equalize for the hosts at the team’s went into the break tied at 1-1. A 62nd-minute marker from Christ Tapé appeared to have earned the three points for Toulouse, but there was late drama to come. Deep into stoppage time, Ludovic Ajorque struck to salvage a point for Brest as the match ended at 2-2.
Handed his first start of the season, Russell-Rowe played 77 minutes. He was replaced by Santiago Hidalgo. Russell-Rowe finished his shift with one cross and one foul to go along with his goal.
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Alfie Jones, Middlesbrough
For the first time in over a year, Alfie Jones is a goal scorer. In just his second match back for Middlesbrough since an ankle injury ended his 2025-2026 season last Boxing Day, the Canada centre-back found the scoresheet for just the fourth time in six seasons in the Championship. The goal came in a 3-1 win over the previously undefeated West Brom.
A brace from Will Lankshear, now joint-top scorer in the league alongside Cyle Larin, sandwiched around a goal from Jimmy Morgan meant Boro led 2-1 late in Saturday’s match at the Riverside. Jones, who came on in the 69th for Morgan Whitaker, would wrap up the points for the home team in the 86th minute. It was a striker’s finish for Jones...not really.
From a deep free kick, Boro players flooded the area. The ball fell for Adilson Malanda, whose shot was deflected, but fell very kindly for Kyle Joseph at the near post. Unsure of what to do between passing and shooting, Joseph did neither, sweeping a ball across the face of goal. It was too off-target to be a shot and had too much pace to be a pass. Luckily for Boro, the Baggies defenders at the far post made a mess of the clearance and that allowed for Luke Ayling to rifle a low shot that deflected off of Jones and through Mac O’Leary, into the net.
The goal was Jones’s first since a marker in a 3-0 win over Millwall on Aug. 16, 2025. Jones had two previous goals in his five seasons at Hull City. It was his eighth league goal at the senior level overall, having scored twice in League One for Gillingham and twice for St. Mirren in the Scottish Premiership.
