Phil Brown has been using the word "gameplan" a lot lately (assuming it is a word, and not two words crudely grafted together into one bluff cliché). We have had a lot of these gameplans lately, and they seem to have consisted of maintaining clean sheets rather than setting out to win the games.
Now, there are acceptable reasons for Brown to go for this more defensively based tactic. A clean sheet will, after all, guarantee at least a point, and a point a game for the rest of the season will be enough to maintain Hull City's status in the Premier League. A clean sheet was the last thing City achieved this season and is something towards which Brown has had a mild obsession ever since he became manager. Even after winning the opening game against Fulham, beating Newcastle United away and achieving the result of the season at Arsenal, Brown was still telling interviewers he wanted a clean sheet. We eventually got one upon our return to north London a week later with the 1-0 defeat of Tottenham Hotspur.
We kept a clean sheet at Cardiff City in April 2007, won the game, stayed up and deliciously condemned Leeds United to relegation. We kept a clean sheet at Watford, won the game and went into the second leg off the play-off semi with a two-goal cushion. We kept a clean sheet at Wembley and won promotion. We rarely do goalless draws - Portsmouth at home the other week was the first in a League game at the KC for well over a year - so using the theory that we're more likely to score than not, the defensive gameplan is understandable.
The second, more urgent, reason why this defensive mindset dominates Brown's tactical thinking is that at the moment, on paper at least, we have far more available assets in defence than we do in attack. Anthony Gardner's latest injury setback was a tremendous disappointment, but a back four containing Michael Turner and Kamil Zayatte, flanked by Sam Ricketts and Andy Dawson, is still a strong enough unit. Ricketts has had better days than the Middlesbrough game but has rediscovered an element of consistency since losing his place in the autumn (and still we should have signed Paul McShane permanently when we had the chance) but certainly Turner and Dawson - the former especially - have had excellent seasons and Zayatte, for his handful of brainstorms, had adapted to a new club and footballing culture very well.
Contrast this with the state of the attack, where Manucho is our best goalscoring hope, even though his header at the Riverside was only his second for the club since joining at the end of the January transfer window. The attack used to be this fantastic three-pronged, multi-directional humdinger but now Marlon King has flounced out, helped by Brown's boot and cutting words, Daniel Cousin has a back problem that seems to be taking forever to heal, and Geovanni is playing on the misguided understanding that games only last half an hour.
Craig Fagan's industry and belief is worthy, but the lad is too hot-headed and has never managed to cure the abysmal first touch and woeful finishing which has blighted his eventful City career since he joined for his first spell back in the League One days. Bernard Mendy's head has gone (not that it was ever fully there in the first place) and when Caleb Folan, a player whose lack of touch and ability to stay onside has become the stuff of legend, is the best available option from the bench, then we know we have problems. Meanwhile, Stoke City have James Beattie, purchased in January, getting them slowly and firmly away from danger.
So with defence strong, at face value, and attacking options somewhat limited, at any value you care to apply, the gameplan becomes clear and Brown is using it. Unfortunately, such gameplans cannot allow for mistakes by an experienced skipper after fewer than three minutes and a powderpuff save from a former non-league goalkeeper handing the opening goal on a plate. The gameplan goes out of the window right there as caution cannot be justified when your opponent has a goal headstart.
To City's credit, they exploited Middlesbrough's own nerves quickly and Manucho restored the gameplan with his fine header. But ultimately a draw is the hardest thing in the world to play for, especially if your opponents are in no mood whatsoever to play for it too. Against a team desperate for a win, City needed to go at them rather than exercise a gameplan which permitted them ample opportunity to venture forward, get a feel of the ball and make chances. Relying on the defence is an incredibly risky business when the opposition has, by dint of its poor position in the table, no choice but to throw the kitchen sink and all into attack.
If you play for a win, you may get the draw you want, not to mention the win itself. If you play for a draw, you're risking errors and a bad defeat by asking natural footballers - Nick Barmby, Geovanni, even Dean Marney when he came on at the break - to not play the game that suits them.
Fortunately for Brown, although not for the fingernails of the Tiger Nation, he has an identical fixture this weekend to put it right. City travel to Sunderland, again beneath the Tigers in the table, and need to put the right gameplan into action. There is little wrong with the team of players Brown is picking - given that Gardner, Cousin and Jimmy Bullard are all crucially absent, he's left with little choice, and there's no Ashbee this weekend either - but he has to adapt the gameplan so that they're allowed to play. If again City's mentality is to stop the opposition playing, then the slope will get ever more slippery - and as it's Liverpool and then Aston Villa to come after this weekend, I hold great fear for just how slippery it may become.
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