If one man surely is in a position to rescue Hull City from what feels like certain relegation right now, it's Daniel Cousin.
Hull City cannot score goals, and Cousin is a goalscorer. Ergo, now that he appears by dint of our own eyesight to be fit again, he should be playing. A question mark must remain over his fitness, however, as he wasn't even risked for 20 minutes against Sunderland at the weekend, when the Tigers were a goal down but dominating possession.
Each time Manucho turned sweetly and then shot chronically, an involuntary glance was offered towards the bench by 4,000 members of the Tiger Nation, wondering if the Gabonese hitman was close to making an entrance. Nick Barmby's eventual introduction as the third sub, welcome as it was (though also far too late), put paid to that idea.
Why on earth, when the situation was crying out so forcefully for Cousin's precise brand of finishing, was he not brought on? Caleb Folan instead emerged as the first sub, sidling up alongside Manucho to concoct a crack strike partnership with the least potential for goals since Peter Taylor picked any two from Aaron Wilbraham, Jon Walters and Delroy Facey in 2005, and somehow still got us promoted. Manucho has two this season, Folan one. And while Manucho can at least claim credit for a work ethic that Folan certainly can not, ultimately laziness is as forgivable as endeavour is irrelevant if, at the end of either, the player puts the ball away.
Manucho's finishing was beyond contemptible at the Stadium of Light. Folan, in his half hour or so, got on the end of one decent cross and aimed the header wide. To his credit, it was his most productive game for the Tigers since the opening day winner against Fulham, in that he had evidently re-learned the basics of the game - how to control a football, how to stay onside and how to anticipate where the best position for a scoring chance may yet be.
But he isn't going to score the goals that keep City in the Premier League. Manucho isn't either, though he may at least make a telling contribution on the application front. Geovanni has lost all interest (and should be dropped) and Craig Fagan's technical prowess and composure in the final third is as dire as it has always been, so the secondary attacking options are hardly going to provide back up.
Our midfield doesn't score at all - of all the City players who you would tattoo with the word 'midfielder' ahead of any other, only Bernard Mendy, Ian Ashbee and Richard Garcia have scored Premier League goals for the Tigers. Mendy has two, while Ashbee and Garcia have, like Folan, a grand total of one. City didn't win any of the games in which those three scored.
Barmby is a cross between midfielder and striker, depending on whether his own considerable resources are put to use in a central role or wasted down a flank, but he too only has one Premier League goal. Dean Marney has played a lot of football this season but in terms of scoring chances, only his connection with the post at Tottenham Hotspur and his agonising miss at Chelsea have brought him even semi-close to opening his account. George Boateng has rarely scored wherever he has gone and will never do so for City. Kevin Kilbane came closest at the Stadium of Light and hit a post at Chelsea but also scores scarcely.
So, if our strikers can't score, and our midfielders don't score, then it seems we're rather in shtuck. Certainly it's too much to rely on Michael Turner and Kamil Zayatte to get on the end of set-pieces all the time, although it's noticeable just how much the roar goes up when City do earn a corner or dangerously graphed free kick, as there will always be genuine hope that our central defenders can saunter forward and do something. But they're not goalscorers, and it's unfair to weigh expectation on them to provide at one end as proficiently as they can prevent at the other.
So we return to the issue of Cousin. He is renowned, not always flatteringly, for scoring mainly on the biggest occasions. One hopes he has got it into his head that Aston Villa away, Stoke City at home and Bolton Wanderers away are just as big, if not bigger, occasions than the visits of Liverpool and Manchester United to the KC which sandwich them, and that his mission to save Hull City's season begins right here. Assuming he is fit enough.
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