This blog last week implored Hull City to tell us the full story regarding Stephen Hunt's foot injury. Too crucial was the player to our hopes of avoiding the drop from the Premier League that it was not acceptable to just drip feed the information.
Well, now the club has revealed the situation. And, frankly, Hunt could easily have played his last game for the club.
The chippy Irishman is out for the remainder of the season and, in the now depressingly likely event of City's relegation, will undoubtedly be one of the highest earners that Adam Pearson will need to offload from the wage bill come the summer. Unlike some of the other recipients of the bigger wages, Hunt would be able to leave the club with his head held high and the appreciation of the Tiger Nation his to keep forever.
It is surprising to note, however, that the same may not apply to Jimmy Bullard, who definitely will leave the club in the event of demotion to the Championship, and may well still do so even if the outside bet of survival comes in. Bullard is suffering right now, but not to the extent that he deserves much sympathy from the Tiger Nation.
The upshot of it is that Bullard, probably closer to Phil Brown than anyone else within the squad the manager left behind when instructed to go push his lawnmower around, has not looked interested or focussed at all since the management regime changed. He still receives the ball with the same frequency and, of course, is by far and away the best creative force in the side. But his play at the moment is weak and limp and he is proving something of a liability.
He hasn't got fitness, or the continued re-acquisition of, as an excuse any more. Since returning from his latest injury he has played enough games and run enough yardage to restore the fitness levels he needs. There is more to it than this. He not only looks half-hearted, he seems frightened.
His last injury was to his previously "good" knee, meaning that Bullard now has ligament issues in both knees. In recent weeks he has taken to playing deeper and deeper, choosing to release the ball earlier rather than make space with a run or a sidestep, and plays far more square or backward passes than he does forward. There have been a handful of occasions where he has been tackled and subsequently stayed down just long enough for a few hearts to reach mouths, prior to his return to a standing position and continuation of the game.
It is a terrible thing to contemplate when one considers the rotten luck he has had, and the transformation to the team he inspired alone when he made his first comeback late last year, but right now the Tigers would be better off without Bullard. Of course it is easier to pick him when the team needs players capable of inspiring vital wins to be involved, but currently Bullard can't do that. The harsher critic would say that he won't do it, for reasons of self-protection and out of loyalty to his golfing partner and former manager. Only Bullard knows the truth, and only Bullard can deny that the latter is true. The continuing stories of Bullard's lack of self-respect as far as his social habits are concerned adds more fuel to the fire.
If Iain Dowie has the gall to drop Jozy Altidore for the impotent Caleb Folan, a decision he mercifully realised was wrong very quickly, he should also have the guts to drop Bullard, whose apparent psychological and attitude issues are affecting the team and its immediate future. Tom Cairney is waiting on the bench, all contracted up and with every desire to help keep the Tigers in the top division. He is a fine craftsman in waiting and will add the belief and nerve that Bullard's contribution hasn't supplied in quite a while. It has seemed for a while that the only people who don't seem to believe in how good he is are the two managers who have had to choose him - or not choose him.
And lest we forget that Geovanni, for all his own fall from grace in recent times, has far more credibility as a forward-thinking creator over the last 12 months than Bullard, in this current form, will ever have. There are alternatives to Bullard. It's a question as to whether Dowie notices them, and whether he then has the bottle to use them.
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