And so the debate about the enigma of Dean Marney takes a new twist.
Very quietly, Marney has worked his way towards senior status in the Tigers squad, with this his fourth season at the club and yet still he has not convinced the majority of Hull City supporters.
Marney isn't a figure of out-and-out hate at all; but he does frustrate and bemuse vast quantities of the Tiger Nation. Yet now, with Jimmy Bullard finally fit to take on the creative responsibilities previously laid at Marney's door, there could be a breakthrough for the talented ex-Spurs player.
The workrate of Marney has always been his saviour. Once it became apparent that the famous goal he scored as a teenager for Tottenham Hotspur against Everton was more of a rod for his back than a sign of things to come, his energy became his main contribution to the team's cause.
Yet with his running and eternal willingness to take the ball came a disappointing lack of accuracy, sometimes with his passing but almost always with his shooting.
Marney hasn't scored a goal for the Tigers for 18 months. And that was a penalty. He has only really come close to a Premier League goal twice since promotion - when he hit the post at, of all places, Tottenham in October last year; and when he put a one-on-one chance inches wide at Chelsea in the New Year.
For as long as Marney had to fill a role of craft as well as graft, the Tiger Nation ended up being disappointed by his achievements. Rarely is his effort questioned, regularly is his effectiveness. He has supporters on his back at times, yet for 90 per cent of a match he is collecting the ball, playing it simple and maintaining possession. It's when he shoots from distance or tries a slightly ambitious ball that he comes unstuck, and with the patience for which all tunnel-visioned fans are not renowned, the previous good work means nothing and the one bad effort incurs all their venom.
And so enter Bullard.
Once again, the return of this fantastic footballer seems to have galvanised team-mates on both a collective and individual basis. The wide players have someone able to feed them on the overlap; Geovanni can spread his runs without having to drop back; the centre forwards can feed off good slide rule passes and balls from deep with their back to goal.
And Marney can concentrate on what he does best. Against West Ham United, he did just that.
With Bullard now doing the resourceful stuff, Marney's role as an energiser and a bit of hard-running glue that links midfield to attack can flourish. He is good at this, and every team needs someone of this ilk.
Marney still got a fair bit of the ball and yes, sometimes a harder pass didn't quite make it, and there was one shot in the first half that flew its usual few feet wide. But the player's confidence - aided by his recall after Seyi Olofinjana came back from international duty with a sore hamstring - seemed to have grown and flowered, thanks entirely to the presence of Bullard alongside him.
The brilliance of Bullard might just be the catalyst for Marney's long-awaited growth into the midfield battler role. Every team needs one, and for a while when City were beating all and sundry in the autumn of 2008, Marney was doing just that. As long as he keeps the passes simple and the shooting to a minimum (or, preferably, spends hours and hours on distant shooting practice after training each day) then he would appear to be Bullard's best available partner right now.
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