Where the big names play the big games

The most simplistic, not to mention the most positive, view to adopt after Saturday's performance against Liverpool is that if Hull City play like that for long enough over the next three matches, we'll stay up.

This is, of course, far easier said than it is done. The team is still trying to get its genuinely Premier League quality players back - or at least, the ones who have a hope of coming back, so we'll still leave Jimmy Bullard and Anthony Gardner to one side - and this applies in two manners. We want back the Premier League quality players who have lately been unfit, and we want back the Premier League quality players who have lately been unimpressive.

The tremendous Daniel Cousin is the only player who fits the former category but, after the abomination that is Caleb Folan crowned an industrious but technically inept performance with a sending off indiscretion of which an amateur player would be ashamed, Cousin was finally slung into action. His dodgy back was apparently now worthy of risk due to a) having no centre forward on the park; b) being a goal down already; and c) being up against the most decorated club in English football history.

And although Liverpool scored their second within seconds of Cousin's introduction, soon he showed why he, and only he, is the player in our semi-fit ranks who can make a difference up front, taking on two defenders with the sort of ease that Folan would have struggled to muster against third tier defences in his Chesterfield days, before sliding a ball into an open six yard box for Geovanni to score. Ten men on the park, but some of those ten men were good enough. Cousin had already made the removal of Folan, if not quite the self-removal of Folan, worthwhile.

Cousin is still cast by some City fans as lazy. This just emphasises how ignorant football supporters are, and the right to say what you like because you have paid your money does not excuse invective that is wrong, or unhelpful, or both. Cousin is languid in his manner, but he has the class of 50 Folans and this class means that he can come up with something special, immediate or timely (or all three) against very good defences in a way that Folan, himself something of a chilled character on the pitch (to put it politely), will never have the nerve, ability or intelligence to attempt or achieve.

As for the Premier League quality players who need to start performing again, we got evidence of this against Liverpool too. Bernard Mendy, introduced simultaneously to Cousin, played the divine crossfield as City countered, which allowed Cousin to take possession and plot his destruction of the opposition defence to create the goal. We know so many things about Mendy - he is quick, he is positive, he is very skilled and has an enthusiasm which, channeled within a set-up prepared to indulge his enthusiasms, can be very effective indeed. We also know that he can disappear from games if things are going awry and so maybe his usefulness in the run-in, as with this game against Liverpool and a couple of minor flashes of brilliance at Sunderland the week before, is best as the impact substitute.

Geovanni scored the goal, albeit a goal no played should miss, but there was an edge and a liveliness to his play which we haven't seen for some time on any consistent level from the Brazilian. Like Mendy, he is a player who can easily swing a game back his side's way after one moment of magic, and he has brought out a lot of patience from the Tiger Nation of late because they know that just one bit of genius from him could emerge from him at any point in any game, even those in which he has stunk. There have been too many of those lately, and one wonders if had the opposition been anyone but Liverpool, a team against whom ace cards could be held back, the Brazilian may have found himself benched. We'll never know and we don't need to know - what we do know is that Geovanni was constantly seeking the ball and making frequent inroads into Liverpool's back four with it glued to his feet. The goal was straightforward as far his own contribution was concerned but it was also crucial, and one also considers the fizzing first half shot from an awkward height which was minimally too high but did at least keep everyone roaring their approval that Geovanni might just be back. It's a crass assumption to make, but given the rebirth of his countryman Robinho at Manchester City of late, maybe it really could be something to do with the upturn in climate.

One other figure whose vitality upon restoration to the team has been obvious is George Boateng. His role as anchor and leader in the centre of the field has been telegraphed more while Ian Ashbee has been banned, but there is no doubt that a midfield containing Boateng just makes the whole occasion of watching Hull City's fight a little easier to bear. His passing is sound and his organisation skills are plain for all to observe, while it's notable how he often just seems to be in the right place when the ball is not in his possession, or more urgently, not in his team's possession. He is as experienced as Ashbee in playing football; but he adds authentic, credible Premier League knowhow to the midfield which Ashbee cannot do, and with or without the skipper, Boateng proved against Liverpool that he will be as important a cog in the Hull City machine as any of the more resourceful, eye-catching players around him.

Let's look through this again - Cousin up front, with Geovanni behind him, and Boateng shoring up the base of the midfield. With the immortal Michael Turner and the resuscitated Boaz Myhill further behind, suddenly there is a proper, Premier League standard spine to the team, the type which coaches and distinguished football writers claim is needed in any type of team at any level if it aims to be successful. Other players - Nick Barmby, Kamil Zayatte - need to be at the top of their games to enhance the hope provided by this spine, but if success for Hull City really does constitute survival in the first Premier League season, as so many after Wembley claimed it would, then we seem to have given ourselves half a chance.