Monday 17 August 2009

H & H



One already feels that Stephen Hunt has achieved more in an hour of Premier League football for Hull City than Peter Halmosi has managed in the same position for a year.

Halmosi started just four Premier League games last season and Hunt's smart performance at Chelsea has made it even easier to see why. The new arrival from Reading has an industry and insolence to his game that the honest but one-dimensional Halmosi has struggled to show off in his time with the Tigers.

Hunt's goal, scored after less than half an hour of his debut, was a cool finish from a situation which would have had lesser players and weaker characters panicking and ballooning the ball skywards. His one Premier League goal for Hull City is one more than the hapless Halmosi, whose only strike for the Tigers so far was a studder in the FA Cup against Sheffield United and who, in all probability, would not have been in the dangerous position Hunt placed himself in to pick up the scraps from George Boateng's barricaded shot. Halmosi would have been wider, as a touchline seems to be his only friend, and therefore he is dispensible when City pursue a narrower, less urgent brand of football.

Halmosi was on the bench at Chelsea so maybe Phil Brown sees a role for him in some form or other, and not just to make a League One fullback look foolish when Southend United turn up in the Carling Cup next week. There is certainly an argument that he wasn't used enough last season, especially at stages where an extra natural attacker was needed. But with the arrival and immediate impact of a very clued-up footballer in Hunt, the future of the headbanded Hungarian, for all his obvious ability to cross a ball, looks more precarious than ever.