Boyhood Dreams

And in the end...

2010-05-23T14:46:00.005+01:00

This is where Boyhood Dreams comes to an end, then, a day short of the second anniversary of our victory at Wembley that kicked the whole thing off. I've been following the Tigers for 23 years but only ever intended for this blog to exist for as long as Hull City were in the Premier League. The boyhood dream was fulfilled and now it has, for the moment at least, been extinguished.

I've loved writing the reports and offering my own banal observations for the last two years but ultimately the interest in a blog on a skint Championship club would be comparatively negligible, plus my own finances mean I'm going to have to pick and choose a bit more as far as attending away matches is concerned.

We have a very different era ahead of us now, hopefully one that will restore us, after doubtless a spell of heartache and worry that Hull City always brings, to the Premier League once more. Austerity, integrity and modesty are what we require from all involved in the club now. It's been - oh dear - an astonishing journey to the top, but now we have to try to get there again via slightly less showbiz means and with real football people controlling the club.

I hope Boyhood Dreams remains a worthy read as an archive of all that occurred from the day the Tigers won at Wembley. It will stay on the internet with the intention of being such.

Thank you for the kind comments, the links, the contributions, the tweets and the complaints. See you at the KC.

Bernard

2010-05-17T16:54:00.005+01:00

How to sum up the Hull City career of Bernard Mendy? The Frenchman has today triggered a release clause in his contract and exited the club.

Well, three words should do it.

Frustrating. Entertaining. Barmy.

That about condenses it. He'll be missed, if not quite for pure footballing reasons.

And the winner is...

2010-05-13T17:41:00.009+01:00

The Player of the Year awards took place this week. Here, this blog offers its opinion on who should have received the two biggest awards.

Player of the Season: Stephen Hunt

It is telling as to Hunt's ability and Hull City's overall gutlessness that he still wins this award, by some distance too, despite having his season ended by a foot injury back in February. Signed from Reading in the summer, the chippy Irish winger settled in immediately on the opening day against Chelsea, scoring the first goal of the whole Premier League season and, on a performance level, rarely looking back. It was obvious that he possessed the kind of attitude that makes fans love a player, in that he cared not a jot about the ability or reputation of any opponent at all, and would seek to outwit that adversary both through skill and gamesmanship with equal flourish.

Hunt proved himself, handily, as an able finisher as well as a tidy supplier of crosses and a merciless extra pair of tackling feet when, as did frequently happen, the going got tough at the other end. He was rarely the starter of any fracas but was always a competitor and often the finisher of such skirmishes; his willingness to dive in and protect his teammates from intimidation and made him all the more admirable, and his footballing talent made his off-ball antics worthwhile and forgivable, despite the bookings that regularly followed.

Despite the horror stories of the club's finances that Adam Pearson was revealing in the weeks following his return, the club felt able to fend off repeated bids for Hunt from Wolves, with £5 million certainly nothing to be sniffed at even at a prudent time. Hunt didn't let the speculation trouble him, even scoring against Wolves on the penultimate day of the same window.

He didn't miss a League game until his worsening foot injury finally forced him out of action at Everton in February; six days before he had made the trip to West Ham United but couldn't complete the match. A deafening silence followed which frustrated the supporters as it coincided with a shocking run of defeats, before the grim truth that Hunt's season was over finally emerged from the club.

While there were hopes of Hunt sticking around over the summer due to his injury and helping the Tigers in the Championship until the club could cash him in, the player himself has revealed he had an agreement that would allow him to leave in the event of demotion. Clubs are likely to take a chance on him despite his need for crutches for some time yet, and we have seen the last of him. His recent revelation that he chose to scold certain members of the first team squad for their lack of application suggested that his appetite for being a winner wasn't just for public consumption, and he will leave the club a hero who, briefly, we were privileged to see.

Highly commended: George Boateng - defied his age to fight and fight some more in the midfield right through to the last game. Steven Mouyokolo - a simple case of class overriding anything else, as he was handed his favoured central defensive role in January and never looked back.

Goal of the Season: George Boateng, v Manchester City (h)

City were a goal up thanks to Jozy Altidore's tidy first half finish against the richest club in the land whose demeanour thus far seemed to suggest they believed it would be merely a question of time before they levelled up and, eventually, won the game. The match was in the early period of the second half when Craig Fagan forced a corner which Hunt swung in towards the six yard box.

Kolo Toure got a strong header on it and it bounced invitingly for Boateng, loitering on the edge of the area. This was a player who hadn't scored for Hull City, and moreover it was landing on his weaker left foot. But it was simply one of those occasions when the 100th attempt after 99 failures would be the one that mattered. He swung his left foot, got the sweet spot of his instep and the ball flew, true and vicious, through the crowd of bodies and beyond Shay Given's helpless left glove.

This made the scoreline 2-0 and although the visitors pulled one back fairly quickly, the Tigers hung on for a victory deemed the most satisfying of the season, because of the performance of the team, the distinguished opposition and the quality of the goal that ultimately decided the outcome.

Highly commended: Tom Cairney, v Everton (a) - a marvellous tee-up and left foot volley from distance that briefly gave the Tigers hope before an eventual thrashing. Andy Dawson, v Everton (h) - a simply superb textbook free kick that combined power with curl, dip and astounding accuracy.

The stats of the season

2010-05-12T10:03:00.008+01:00

Premier League:

Final position:
19th

Home Record:
P19, W6, D6, L7, F22, A29, Pts24

Away Record:
P19, W0, D6, L13, F12, A46, Pts6

Longest Unbeaten Sequence:
4 games

Longest Winless Sequence:
9 games

Longest Sequence of Victories:
1 game

Longest Sequence of Draws:
2 games

Longest Sequence of Defeats:
5 games

Appearances:

Dawson 35, Hunt 27, Myhill 27, Boateng 26 (3), McShane 26 (1), Gardner 24, Zayatte 21 (2), Fagan 20 (5), Mouyokolo 19 (2), Vennegoor of Hesselink 17 (14), Altidore 16 (12), Geovanni 16 (10), Kilbane 15 (6), Mendy 15 (6), Marney 15 (1), Garcia 14 (4), Bullard 13 (1), Olofinjana 11 (8), Duke 11, Cairney 10 (1), Sonko 9, Folan 7 (1), Barmby 6 (14), Ghilas 6 (7), Turner 4, Zaki 2 (4), Cullen 2 (1), Atkinson 2, Cousin 1 (2), Cooper 1 (1)

Goals:

Hunt 6, Bullard 4, Geovanni 3, Vennegoor of Hesselink 3, Fagan 2, Folan 2, Zayatte 2, Altidore 1, Atkinson 1, Boateng 1, Cairney 1, Cullen 1, Dawson 1, Ghilas 1, Kilbane 1, Marney 1, Mouyokolo 1, Olofinjana 1

Red Cards:

Boateng 2 (one straight - later rescinded, one two yellows), Altidore 1 (straight), Fagan 1 (two yellows), Geovanni 1 (two yellows), Mendy 1 (straight)

Yellow Cards:

Dawson 7, Fagan 6, Altidore 5, McShane 5, Mendy 5, Barmby 4, Hunt 4, Marney 4, Boateng 3, Geovanni 3, Olofinjana 3, Zayatte 3, Kilbane 2, Myhill 2, Atkinson 1, Cairney 1, Duke 1, Folan 1, Gardner 1, Garcia 1, Mouyokolo 1, Turner 1

FA Cup:

Reached:
Third Round

Games Played:
One

Appearances:
Cairney 1, Garcia 1, Geovanni 1, Ghilas 1, Halmosi 1, Kilbane 1, Mendy 1, Mouyokolo 1, Myhill 1, Vennegoor of Hesselink 1, Zayatte 1, Altidore 0+1, Boateng 0+1, Cullen 0+1

Goals:

Geovanni 1

Carling Cup:

Reached:
Third Round

Games Played:
Two

Appearances:
Barmby 2, Cairney 2, Cooper 2, Featherstone 2, Halmosi 2, Ghilas 1+1, Altidore 1, Atkinson 1, Boateng 1, Doyle 1, Duke 1, Fagan 1, Mendy 1, Mouyokolo 1, Vennegoor of Hesselink 1, Warner 1, Zayatte 1, Geovanni 0+1

Goals:

Altidore 1, Cairney 1, Geovanni 1

Where can you shove your Premier League?

2010-05-11T10:32:00.013+01:00

So the Premier League adventure has reached its end, and many of us are rather relieved. Irrespective of the horrors that the financial situation may force upon us over the summer, there is too much about the top tier of English football that is unattractive to the kind of supporter who wants their team to achieve and compete.

Hull City made up the numbers, and did so quite badly. They weren't alone, and the reality is that while only three teams go down, as many as six probably deserved it. The gap is widening as big, rich clubs get bigger and richer and the smaller, poorer clubs get smaller and poorer. And getting poorer in the name of a meagre 14th place, stagnation, watertreading, free of ambition, simply does not make for football that will earn new supporters and maintain enthusiasm.

If the Tigers had achieved mid-table obscurity for a few years, then everybody from the East Riding who wanted to come and see the club would not have been there to support their local team. You only have to look at the evidence of the post-match pitch invasion on Sunday, as many ignored the likes of Steven Mouyokolo and George Boateng, two of probably only half a dozen players who can say they have performed this season, and headed straight for Steven Gerrard instead. A superstar he may be (albeit one who played with his fitness for South Africa in mind) but, the way football now is, smaller clubs are not able to create their own superstars.

Tom Cairney is a wonderful player, but he will only be a superstar if and when he gets the big move to a top half club that his early promise suggests will happen. Even then, at some clubs he would be a Carling Cup superstar only, and yet being that type of irregularly used player will earn him more money and plaudits thanks to the cockeyed view of the game that the Premier League has created than being a first team definite for Hull City, in either division, would ever manage. Fortunately, right now, it seems Cairney is one who will stick around.

The nature of last season's survival meant it was crucial for Phil Brown to invest wisely with what money we were told we had. It still seemed an adequate sum, for after a worrying delay with next to no activity, he brought in Jozy Altidore and Seyi Olofinjana and then later got Stephen Hunt and Kamel Ghilas. These were exciting signings, and certainly the arrival of Altidore and Ghilas eased a few fluttering hearts given that we were getting closer to starting the new Premier League season without a new centre forward that wasn't inadequate (Caleb Folan) or argumentative (Daniel Cousin).

Mouyokolo, who had been signed in the January but allowed to stay in France until the summer, also reported for duty at his new club and so five new players were in place. We needed a right back, as Sam Ricketts had most regrettably gone to Bolton Wanderers after a daft disagreement with Brown over the promise of a contract extension, and his unkind words about his former manager to Bolton's local paper provided the first of many critical words about Brown's ability to motivate and get on with his own footballers.

August arrived and the television dictated that we would start the season courtesy of a lunchtime kick-off at Chelsea. City were superb throughout, with Olofinjana showing real bite in the tackle and Hunt instantly becoming a hero thanks to his obvious lack of respect for anyone not on his side, and this against a team with more reason than most to dislike him. So there was poetry as well as sheer joy (not to mention surprise) in Hunt's opening goal, which he tucked away very smartly indeed. Chelsea equalised quickly and then, in a motif that would be repeated way too often through the season, robbed City of at least a share of the points thanks to Didier Drogba fluking a cross-cum-shot in injury time. A desolate feeling but my word, such performances would guarantee many an away win...

Tottenham Hotspur arrived at the KC Stadium for our opening home game three days later and played us off the park with an attacking display that could only be described as magnificent. Hunt scored again for City, and as it was an equaliser it was another goal we could count as crucial, but the eventual 5-1 scoreline did not flatter the visitors at all. Bolton Wanderers at home on the Saturday was more important, and indeed the brief but nippy combination of Altidore and Ghilas up front made the eventual difference, with the American teeing up the Algerian for a fine volley that produced the first win, the first points and the first clean sheet of the season.

The first glimpse of Cairney came in the Carling Cup tie against Southend United, and the youngster's touch was divine throughout the game against underwhelming opposition whose lowly status was exploited to the full. Altidore scored his first goal for the club with a smart free kick and Cairney chipped a marvellous second as City eventually won 3-1. But trouble was brewing as the transfer window's time was coming to an end and the speculation about star defender Michael Turner, our hero and talisman and the player whom every single member of the Tiger Nation adored unconditionally, was growing.

Liverpool had taken a look but the big rumour was about Sunderland, and we had the worrying and infuriating combination of City's egotistical chairman Paul Duffen doing all the talking while Brown, presumably allowed to air an opinion, was deathly silent on the matter. Turner had started the season in largely the same impassable form as he had basically shown for the previous two and a half years - Tottenham permitting - but the Tigers seemed almost desperate to sell. Duffen claimed it was about player ambition and Turner's own desire to leave but the reality of both the circumstances, not to mention the fee, would be revealed later in the season. The suggestion that we would get £12 million for him, albeit with a small percentage heading to two London clubs as sell-on payments, could have acted as a minute consolation but ultimately the fee was undisclosed and Turner, after a last hurrah of iconic proportions in a 1-1 draw at Wolves, in which Geovanni's third minute header provided the only period when the Tigers looked capable of winning, applauded the fans who worshipped his every move and travelled straight up to Wearside.

The anger at this sale was further complemented by concern over how short the Tigers would be in the centre of defence. Anthony Gardner was freshly injured again, although there was an option to move Mouyokolo, who had been at right back, into his natural position once Paul McShane arrived from Sunderland in a deal that was entirely separate to that which took Turner the other way. McShane had been very good during his loan spell the previous year and his acquisition was initially proclaimed as good business. The rawness of Mouyokolo was deemed not suitable, yet, for the Premier League and so Ibrahima Sonko, a third choice (at best) defender at Stoke City, joined hastily on a season-long loan.

Days after the window shut, Brown signed Dutch centre forward Jan Vennegoor of Hesselink, who had been a free agent since leaving Celtic in the summer. Another goalscorer was now available for selection, although Vennegoor of Hesselink's experience was countered by his lack of Premier League knowledge. The great coincidence of the Turner farce came the following weekend when City travelled to Sunderland. Turner was warmly welcomed by the Wearsiders who won the game at a canter, with Kamil Zayatte's equaliser late in the first half proving little more than a consolation in a 4-1 loss during which, inevitably, Turner scored. To his gentlemanly credit, he offered a gesture of apology to the Tiger Nation as the ball hit the net before rightfully heading towards the Sunderland fans to celebrate, and looking around the Tiger Nation there were almost tears of frustration at the whole sorry business. Craig Fagan's imbecilic concession of a penalty early on put him in Brown's bad books, subsequently renamed his 'naughty step', and it wouldn't be the first time a player would be over-punished by a wayward manager for damage caused on the pitch.

Birmingham City then visited the KC Stadium and won an awful game with a late header, the first of many truly preventable defeats that would stain the Tigers' season as a whole. Everton then brought a far stronger than anticipated team to the KC to demolish City's non-existent Carling Cup ambitions by four goals, though Cairney again was impressive.

A visit to Liverpool followed, and it was a daunting enough prospect without the team news that filtered around before the game that the already struggling Sonko would be partnered by teenage defender Liam Cooper, who had looked tidy and not overawed in the Carling Cup defeat but did not seem ready to face Fernando Torres at his ridiculous best. Cooper, it emerged, was by far the most competent of the two centre backs as Torres ran riot with a hat-trick in a 6-1 win, Geovanni's sumptuous volley bringing only brief respite to the Tiger Nation when still only a goal down.

More 'naughty step' inhabitants emerged from that game, with Cousin's briefly good substitute appearance not being indulged further by Brown, while Boateng - one of several captains already during the campaign thanks to the long-term absence of both Ian Ashbee and anyone even remotely capable of filling the mighty skipper's boots - also took his leave, quietly seething. Wigan Athletic arrived at the KC the following week and Kevin Kilbane had to play at centre back to allow for Cooper's repositioning in the reserves, Gardner's continued absence through injury and Zayatte's deployment in midfield to cover the chastened Boateng. City won 2-1, with second half goals from Vennegoor of Hesselink and Geovanni proving enough as Wigan scored late in the match and threatened an equaliser to the end.

A long rest afterwards was ideally timed as City's trip to Fulham had been put back by 48 hours by television people. In the end it was as unnecessary as you could imagine, with such an abject display angering the supporters whose efforts to get to west London on a school night deserved far more than it produced. Fulham's 2-0 win was one of their easiest and only the sight of Jimmy Bullard warming up, to a mixed response from the fans he had left behind, offered some long term hope. He came on and immediately showed why he was our trump card, whose fitness and influence should turn our season around. But he couldn't get close to earning us a route back into the match.

Portsmouth, already in serious trouble off the pitch, came to the KC Stadium and the two teams fought out a depressing goalless draw. But then big news emerged off the pitch as Duffen, whose role in budgeting the Tigers' promotion had been severely hampered by his many subsequent acts that alienated supporters, announced he was leaving the club. It seemed the ultimate act of gallantry, in that he was taking responsibility for the team's lack of progress and was, in a nutshell, sacking himself in order to avoid having to sack Brown. The news that broke simultaneously was that Adam Pearson, the greatest chairman in Hull City history, had quit his position at Derby County, allowed many an excited supporter to put two and together and get their sums right.

Pearson attended City's game at Burnley amidst strong rumours that upon his official appointment the following Monday, he would dismiss Brown without a moment's thought. Despite the 2-0 defeat at Turf Moor, a game which genuinely went awry for reasons of luck than anything else (Geovanni's perfectly good goal from a free kick being disallowed, and his subsequent plot-losing actions that prompted a red card), Brown stayed put. Stoke City were due to visit the following weekend before a fortnight's break, so if any decisions were going to be made, it was sensible to make them when games were not on the horizon. And it allowed Brown the chance to impress his returning boss with the benefit of preparation.

The alteration was instant. Brown began exercising humility in interviews and some caution in the number of media appearances he gave. His safety blanket had been swiped off him and he knew it. Pearson had made it clear that a win against Stoke would keep Brown afloat for the time being, but behind the scenes the riot act had been read. For the visit of Stoke, Brown recalled Fagan and Boateng from their isolation periods and, as an extra fillip, was able to put Bullard in the starting XI for the first time ever. The transformation was immense, despite Stoke taking a first half lead. Olofinjana curled a stupendous equaliser and then, with Stoke suffering from a sending-off and then a ridiculous re-substitution of their own substitute, City won it in injury time courtesy of Bullard's shot being parried at the feet of Vennegoor of Hesselink. A crucial, deserved, enjoyable and, by now, rare win.

The two-week break brought Brown and his squad back to earth as Pearson's wise, blunt words steadied the ship and made it plain what was expected of the team. The unravelling of the club's finances had begun too, with Pearson immediately declaring the gruesome, depressing truth of the Turner deal, which stated that City received only £4 million from Sunderland in the end, which was further reduced by the sell-on fees that were due to Charlton Athletic and Brentford. Duffen had undersold our finest player and potentially ruined our Premier League hopes in doing so, prior to leaving.

Still, for all the financial issues that Pearson was still trying to understand, things were looking up on the pitch. Political struggles had been eased, fringe players had been sent out on loan and Bullard was, finally, beginning to show just how valuable he was both as a footballer and as an asset. West Ham United came to the KC after the football-free fortnight ended, and although they took a 2-0 lead, a Bullard-inspired fightback gave City a 3-2 advantage after a crazy first half. It ended 3-3 but was a genuinely thrilling game and put a little more character into the team.

Everton, already substantial winners at the KC in the Carling Cup, were next to arrive for a midweek fixture, and for this game Bullard was given a medically-necessary rest. It mattered not, as City destroyed their visitors in the first half to go in 3-0 up thanks to Hunt and first goals of the season for Andy Dawson and Dean Marney. Everton battled back to 3-2 but the Tigers clung on for a genuinely impressive scalp.

So Pearson returns, Brown winds his neck in and Bullard proves his fitness, and suddenly City have claimed seven points from nine, all at home. There was real hope now. A visit to Manchester City loomed, the scene of where it supposedly all began to go the shape of a pear the season before. City battled and scrapped as the hosts showed their overpaid arrogance in believing it to be a gimme, and Bullard's late penalty earned a fine 1-1 draw and prompted the single most memorable goal celebration in football, which drew Brown's approval.

Four games unbeaten now, but form and hope was ripped to shreds at Aston Villa when Bullard fell awkwardly and damaged his other knee. He left in tears with the whole stadium's sympathetic applause, and to the Tiger Nation, that felt like a resounding thump back towards square one. Villa won easily, with a Matt Duke howler leaving James Milner with an open goal for one of their three unanswered strikes.

The diagnosis on Bullard wasn't as bad as previous injuries to befall his knees, but nonetheless he was out until at least the end of January. City battled to a goalless draw against Blackburn Rovers at the KC - a game as chronic as it sounds - and then gallantly performed against Arsenal at the Emirates despite the referee failing to notice Samir Nasri's appalling stamp on Richard Garcia that sent the rest of the Tigers team apoplectic. The Gunners led by just one goal by the time Geovanni saw a soft penalty saved and it ended 3-0.

Christmas came, as did Manchester United two days on. Wayne Rooney was marvellous in the visitors' 3-1 success as City made the best fight of it that they could, and Fagan's penalty offered hope as well as a long-awaited first goal of the season for City's most divisive performer. Better times would come at a below-freezing Bolton Wanderers in the Tigers' final game of the decade two days later, when some bad goalkeeping from the recalled Boaz Myhill put the Tigers two goals adrift, only for the superb Hunt to score twice in the second half and earn a valuable point. It also prompted the dismissal of Gary Megson as Bolton's manager.

The New Year began with a deeply unwanted trip to Wigan Athletic in the FA Cup which, despite taking an early lead, the Tigers lost 4-1 while football as a whole spat bile at both sets of fans for not turning up. City still took 2,000 which, considering the austere time of year, the freezing winter and the general unattractiveness of the occasion, was a decent following. Cairney and Cooper again used the necessary evils on the fixture list to impress, and by now many were asking why Cairney had yet to feature in a Premier League game, especially with Bullard out.

A daunting trip to Tottenham Hotspur was next, and we got one of those games that happens sometimes, when you are ritually destroyed and yet escape with a point thanks to a rearguard performance bordering on the insane. How Myhill managed to keep out every single chance Tottenham made for themselves is anyone's guess, but it was a welcome point and, in equal measure, brought out resigned plaudits from a bamboozled Harry Redknapp and dimwitted, spiteful criticism from Spurs fans who believed that a small club's role in the Premier League is to let the illustrious opponent win. No goalless draw, and no goalkeeping performance, will ever evoke the same sort of fond memories.

As valuable a point as it was, it was only the Tigers' fourth on the road all season, and still there had been no wins. The next away game was unlikely to alter that, and Rooney again dominated the proceedings with the full quota of goals in Manchester United's 4-0 win at Old Trafford, though it had been still only 1-0 until the last ten minutes, and we got an all-too-rare performance on the right flank from Bernard Mendy that reminded us just how good he is, and how annoyingly seldom he would choose to show it.

Within all this, the fightback against Duffen's regime, heavily criticised in the national press for its profligacy, was really beginning. A club statement announced that legal action was to be launched against the former chairman, and Pearson followed it up with details of the writ - namely that Duffen had used club funds for personal reasons and taken inducements from agents in return for using their services. The reputation of the man who chaired the club during its finest hour had gone from sullied to destroyed, even though no outcome had been reached. What Pearson says, goes. Simple as. Duffen offered denials but ended up repaying some money and settling out of court, increasing Pearson's star even more.

On the pitch, the game we were really waiting for was the next one. Bullard's return had been earmarked for the visit of Wolves to the KC but beyond that, it was the heavily highlighted 'winnable' game that followed the tough trips that January had given us thus far. Bullard wasn't ready to re-feature and Wolves had certainly failed to read the script, twice coming from behind to earn a 2-2 draw. Vennegoor of Hesselink was paired, for the first time, with Altidore up front and the partnership just clicked immediately, with the American setting up the Dutchman for the opening goal. Mouyokolo finally played in the centre of defence and immediately never looked back, while Cairney was also given the Premier League debut he should have had in September. For all the plusses, there was a big minus to the tune of two points. And now the future looked daunting.

January had prompted the much-needed departures of several fringe players while ex-Wigan striker Amr Zaki was brought in on a short-term basis. Chelsea were on the way to the KC and little expectation was placed on the team's shoulders. As if to prove that pressure might have been welcomed, City fought out a superb 1-1 draw against their mighty opponents, with Mouyokolo scoring the opening goal while his defensive counterpart John Terry, fresh from lurid allegations, had his name chanted for wholly less flattering reasons.

Manchester City's visit four days later was equally as daunting but the Tigers went one better. Altidore, now a popular and strong adaptation to Premier League life, finally opened his Premier League account with a smart goal before Boateng also got his first for the the club with probably the best goal of City's season, his stunning shot from the edge of the box hitting the sweet spot of his left foot and finding the net in the blink of an eye. The visitors hauled their way back into the match but it ended 2-1, and so four points had been gleaned from a pair of games expected to yield none.

Suddenly, there was expectation to go with the hope that blind loyalty brings. If City could produce displays and results like that against the clubs with the real money, then there had to be equivalent displays against teams more comparable to the Tigers. However, in typical manner, the next two matches were calamitous. Boateng was unjustly sent off at Blackburn Rovers but it had little effect on a putrid display as the home side won 1-0, then at West Ham United a rancid, negative Tigers side were completely destroyed while Fagan had another of his red mist days and got a suitably coloured card for his trouble.

A third consecutive awayday followed at Everton, and Bullard's return and Cairney's stunning equaliser offered some forlorn hope before the home side romped to a 5-1 win, leaving City with an 11-2 deficit from two trips to Merseyside. This was unacceptable stuff and Brown knew it, and with Arsenal's trip to the KC next, he realised a change was needed. He ditched the defensive mindset and played 4-4-2, with Cairney's brief contractual struggle providing a timely sacrifice that allowed the still-recovering Bullard to operate in such a system.

Arsenal took a first half lead but City equalised through Bullard's penalty after Vennegoor of Hesselink avoided an offside flag and was fouled in the box. Then Boateng was sent off, this time entirely correctly, for a high challenge and a subsequent spot of eye-poking that was more conducive to the oval ball game. With ten men, a 1-1 scoreline and the fact that it was Arsenal, the second half was hardly anticipated with eagerness. But what followed was a Herculean display of fight and spirit that was only ruined when Myhill misjudged a swerving injury time shot from Denilson and batted it straight to Nicklas Bendtner for a heart-shattering 94th minute winner. Yet even in defeat, the praise for City was long and adulatory and much-deserved. There seemed to be little doubt that this sort of performance against smaller teams, were the motivation in place, would get the points required for survival.

Then on the Monday, Brown was fired.

Put on gardening leave, to be precise. On a national level, the decision was scorned and criticised to high heaven for its dual sense of mistiming, coming as it did with only nine games left of a relegation-threatened season and immediately after a quite stunning act of defiance against Arsenal. Bendtner's goal probably made Pearson's decision easier, as had the game ended in the morally correct 1-1 draw that seemed to be its destiny, firing Brown would have exuded an even more explosively derisory response.

Put simply, Pearson had been researching the dreadful financial state of the club further and knew Brown had to be out of the club before any kind of authority began to do its own research. That was the received wisdom from what was, on the face of it, a baffling decision. Brown's overall record and demeanour since October 2008 had been dreadful, but there did seem to be a change in his attitude and his treatment of the players since his pal Duffen had left the club. Naturally, the media-hungry Duffen declared himself available as a talking head to all and sundry upon the news of Brown's release from duty. Meanwhile, Pearson needed to get his new manager in place.

And so in came Iain Dowie, an articulate and intelligent man but not a coach or motivator with a record that suggested he was a better option than Brown. What he did have was a lack of ego, a realisation that he was fortunate to be asked and no baggage at all on a personal front, though the part he played in a number of relegations in his previous career did not warm his choice to the Tiger Nation. He brought his own coaching team with him, jettisoning the unlucky Brian Horton but keeping Steve Parkin, largely due to Parkin's own dogged refusal to take a pay-off.

Dowie prepared his squad for an enormous trip (and not just in mileage) to Portsmouth, a club long since doomed and playing for sympathy and FA Cup progression only. His first double-take act was to put Folan in the team, a player who had returned crocked from a loan spell with Middlesbrough and whose relationship with Brown was untenable even beyond Pearson's mediating stance. Folan hadn't played for City since the autumn and hadn't scored since the opening day of the whole Premier League adventure, and yet managed to score twice as City led 2-1 with five minutes left. A brilliant free kick robbed us of all three points; a horrific Garcia mistake moments later gifted the home side all three. It was beyond all satire to see City lose from such a glorious winning position.

Feeling let down by everyone at the club, the Tiger Nation contemplated relegation but there was still a game in hand to consider and other teams were still losing with similar regularity, if not as comedically. Fulham, refreshingly chasing European silverware instead of points, brought a second-string squad to the KC and City won 2-0 thanks to Bullard's penalty and Fagan's looping header. Dowie had dropped Folan, despite his two-goal haul, and recalled Altidore, while also bringing back Sonko from months in the cold (deservedly) because of severe defensive shortages. City played cohesively and with some optimism and deserved the win and clean sheet.

That this worried relegation rivals was obvious as West Ham made a self-important complaint to the FA over Fulham's team selection when their own house needed to be put in order first. Dowie had his first win and punched the air for the Tiger Nation to acknowledge it.

A trip to Stoke City was next and Dowie fatefully put the long-underperforming McShane at centre back to account for Sonko's ineligibility and, worse still, dropped Altidore for the wretched Folan. McShane made a child-like error to gift Stoke a very early opener, and although City huffed and puffed through the rest of the game, an equaliser looked most unlikely and Stoke got a second in injury time.

Still, it was only Burnley next. They, like the Tigers, had not won away all season and were in far greater trouble than their hosts although by now all the smart money suggested that both of these sides would join Portsmouth in the Championship the following season. But a City win, widely predicted, would give West Ham and Wigan some real food for thought. Naturally, the team with no away wins came to the KC and won, and won easily too. The 1-4 reversal was the lowest moment by some distance within a season made up of plenty of low moments, and nobody doubted City's fate now. Kilbane had scored after three minutes to give the Tigers the advantage; the subsequent showing suggested that they believed 87 minutes against Burnley when a goal to the good would be a doddle. Burnley walked it.

Dowie's negativity continued at Birmingham City, whose excellent season had rendered them more than safe and despite their own thoughts of a summer holiday, they were able to keep out a City side that stuck with 4-5-1 even with substitutions. It was a glorious chance that was completely squandered. The arrival of Aston Villa and their particularly grotesque cynicism ruined the debenture of City's game in hand that had existed since Villa's appearance at the Carling Cup final had prompted their trip to the KC to be rearranged, and their 2-0 win was achieved at half-pace with some City performances - McShane, Kilbane, Fagan - bordering on the criminal.

So it was all, probably, down to Sunderland, who were next at the KC and would effectively relegate the Tigers if they won and West Ham did likewise. An early Darren Bent goal and a penalty miss from a now scandalously disinterested Bullard made sure that was the case. Goal difference issues were preventing the mathematicians from relegating the Tigers on a technicality, but City were down. And they thoroughly deserved it.

The season ended with a 2-2 draw at Wigan Athletic, with Will Atkinson and Mark Cullen both scoring on their full Premier League debuts but an injury time equaliser robbing the Tigers of their final hope for an away win. The 0-0 draw against Liverpool at the KC that completed the fixture list served merely to show how good Cairney and Cullen could be in the Championship next season, and how much some of the mercenaries needed to be shipped out of the club for ethical as well as financial reasons. Burnley's last day win over Tottenham meant that the Tigers finished below them in a sorry 19th place, with £800,000 or so lost as a consequence.

A lot of players will leave in the summer and a lot of managers will be discussed before Pearson make his decision. He ultimately has to either prevent administration or, at worst, guide the club through a short period of administration before any decision on who will pick the team next season will be made. Instinct dictates that Dowie probably doesn't deserve it but may yet be the best of a bad bunch, and anyone who thinks Brown will return is not appreciating just how much he and Pearson will struggle to work together again.

Many players deserve to go, some because they are worthy of Premier League football, some because they cost far too much for what they (don't) provide, some because they aren't good enough as footballers, whatever their status as human beings or earners. The Premier League adventure is over and there are a lot of people, this blogger included, who simply will not miss it. You expect your club to lose touch with you when things are rough in the lower reaches of football, but when it happens during its most high-profile period, you know the game has gone wrong somewhere.

Bring on the Championship, the seven (so far) local derbies, the gifted kids, the inexpensive clubmen led by Ashbee and backed by Myhill and Dawson, and the chairman (now Head of Football Operations, for reasons of potential administration) who, this time, will know that bankrolling the club is not what he is there for. There is more trouble ahead but even if we are skint and ten points down come the first Saturday of August sunshine, it'll feel far better on that day to be a Hull City supporter than it has for any of the last 18 months and more.

38: Hull City 0 - 0 Liverpool - 09/05/2010

2010-05-10T13:26:00.011+01:00

Celebration in defeat and in relegation. Two years in the top tier remains two years more than we had ever managed previously, and despite the poor season and poorer finances, Hull City used the final Premier League game of the season as a cue to remember just how fortunate we have been.

That said, the many who sang unkind words about the experience of top tier have a point. It feels like as much of a relief to go down as it is a disappointment; indeed, a season in the Championship with a team reconstructed on an austere, back to basics policy, filled with exuberant youngsters and older stagers and not riddled with mercenaries who exploited an irresponsible chairman's starstruck ambition to almost bankrupt the club.

It'll start straightaway, with rumours circulating about various players leaving for pastures new, and Adam Pearson claiming in his programme notes that some early business in the summer with both the debts and the squad could give the Tigers a proper footing as far as the start of the new campaign is concerned. The players who wandered slowly, some gingerly, around the pitch to wave to the supporters were saying a real goodbye, not offering meagre wishes for a good summer.

The game? Goalless, obviously, but not guileless. City, unchanged, were very good, Liverpool played like a team who were more anxious than most to get this irritant of a fixture out of the way and think about the future. Liverpool should still have won but City had their moments and thanks to the adolescent triumvirate of Mark Cullen, Tom Cairney and Will Atkinson, the fans had reason to keep alert and maintain their interest and encouragement.

Cairney was fabulous. Cullen also played marvellously. These two will be so important next season. But fortunately there were other good displays from City's establishment too, with Andy Dawson playing his best game of the season and Bernard Mendy having one of those eccentric romps that make you wish, one more time, that he wasn't such an inconsistent waster and headcase.

Liverpool had the first chance in crazy circumstances when Ryan Babel's low ball across the edge of the box was cut out by a backtracking Cairney, whose spooned clearance very nearly beat Matt Duke, striking the stanchion behind the goal and making Liverpool's full compliment of travelling fans believe, momentarily, that it was a rather spectacular own goal. Nabil El Zhar then hit a shot from distance that Duke reached only via a fingertip stretch.

From the corner, El Zhar volleyed a clearance goalwards into the ground and Dirk Kuyt got a flick which beat Duke but was headed over by the bar by George Boateng, sturdy and heroic as the last line of defence. Alberto Aquiliani then hit a low volley inches wide on what was a disappointing day for Liverpool's big enigma.

City made an opportunity when Jan Vennegoor of Hesselink headed a Dawson free kick straight at Jose Reina. Dawson then followed up his delivery with a stunning bit of touchline ballwinning, with his cross cleared to Cairney. His shot took a deflection and went straight at Cullen who, despite his brilliant position in front of goal, couldn't get the ball under proper control and it ricocheted through to Reina. Atkinson then crossed from the right for Cullen to head just wide.

So, chances traded and possession traded equally too. It wasn't amazing football, and neither team were drizzled in enthusiasm, but it was a jolly, spirited occasion nonetheless. Aquilani hit the crossbar from a melee in the City box with Daniel Agger spannering the rebound high and wide as the half petered out. Liverpool had the chances but City matched them for possession and spirit.

City were dominant after the restart, with Vennegoor of Hesselink touching on a wicked Mendy cross and Cullen was a stud's length from sliding the ball in at the far post. Mendy then chose to hit a shot from probably 40 yards out that was bending and well-aimed and would have been the goal of the season had Reina not seen it late and got a full glove on it. It was an extraordinary shot and a fine save.

Aquilani and Kuyt boh missed with distant snapshots and then Geovanni, on for the resourceful Kevin Kilbane, swiped a free kick into the wall, with Dawson also not managing to defeat a wall when another kick was given two minutes later in a similarly dangerous position.

Craig Fagan came on for Vennegoor of Hesselink as City looked to use more pace on the tiring Liverpool defence but afterwards City could create little more as a result, with Cairney slapping one goalwards from long range that Reina chose to double fist away.

Liverpool turned it on in the last ten minutes. Substitute Dani Pacheco's cross was pawed out by Duke and the superb Steven Mouyokolo cleared before a Liverpool boot could finish the job. Steven Gerrard, quiet and yet influential, then put a shot just wide from the edge of the area.

City were distracted by a cloud of pink smoke from some contraption released by a Liverpool supporter as Gerrard broke away but Boateng and Mouyokolo combined with timing and no little desperation to stop him shooting. Cullen then fed off Geovanni's wide ball and hit a fine drive over Reina and also just over the bar, with real confidence and instinct that we should enjoy next season.

Three minutes were added and Gerrard hit the post in that time, with Pacheco also having a cross shot palmed clear by Duke. The woodwork aside, it felt like a goalless draw throughout and that's exactly what it became.

So, season over and the fun and games behind the scenes begin. The chairman has to sort out the finances, attract investment, reduce the asphyxiating wage bill and appoint a manager. He needs to call all of these things correctly to give Hull City the chance to return to the Championship on something close to an even keel.

For the Premier League and all its attractions, there will be plenty who will prefer the more authentic, less cynical world of the Championship, a division that can provide a club with ambitions sprinkled with glory rather than just trying to hold one's own in mid-table in a division that is riddled with cliques, mini-leagues and only entertains those who are neutral or seeking trophies. That rules out a lot of sides. Of course Hull City want to go back there, but next time we will do so in a manner that allows us to progress and glow gradually, sensibly, cautiously.

It has been the best trip we've ever been on. The next one will be even better though. And wiser.

Hull City: Duke, Mendy, Dawson, Mouyokolo, Gardner, Boateng, Cairney, Kilbane (Geovanni 76), Atkinson, Vennegoor of Hesselink (Fagan 84), Cullen. Subs not used: Myhill, Cooper, McShane, Olofinjana, Barmby.
Liverpool: Reina, Agger, Kyrgiakos, Carragher, Aquilani (Pacheco 73), Mascherano, Gerrard, Lucas, Kuyt, Babel (Robinson 87), El Zhar (Ngog 62). Subs not used: Cavalieri, Skrtel, Degen, Ayala.

Money for Marney

2010-05-07T21:32:00.007+01:00

It seems peculiar that one of the players who could have been both useful and affordable in the Championship should be the first one to leave Hull City in the summer, but ultimately everyone has their price.

Dean Marney, a perennial underachiever but certainly a fine player when the wind blows correctly, seems set to join Burnley as soon as the transfer window re-opens.

The money quoted is £1 million, which certainly would come in more than useful as Adam Pearson's huge cost-cutting campaign for the summer to cope with the financial madnesses of his predecessor and the shortfall caused by relegation hits home.

Marney has had four seasons with the Tigers and for most of that time he has failed to convince. Yet there was a three-month spell at the start of the Premier League adventure when he formed part of a three-man midfield that seemed, somehow, to click so brilliantly that the Tigers looked capable of conquering the world.

There is energy and passion within Marney's make-up and despite his limitations and some howls of derision from the Tiger Nation, he has also never hidden from his responsibilities and everyone knows that he is a far better footballer than he has mostly shown. That's the chief frustration. He perhaps won't be missed as readily as Sam Ricketts and Michael Turner have been - they are the other two major signings Phil Parkinson was allowed to make in his short period in charge - but getting a midfielder of his virtues, if not his skills, will be harder than imagined.

And with every other midfielder with the probable exceptions of Ian Ashbee and Tom Cairney being almost flaunted in the windows of the KC Stadium for passing clubs to purchase, certainly reinforcements will be needed. Beggars can't be choosers, and in an ideal world other players would have been shipped out before anyone had come in for Marney.

If he does go, he'll be missed by this blogger, if mainly for his brand of honest endeavour and his admirable method of trying to gain and maintain confidence by constantly looking for the next ball.

The fire sale (part two)

2010-05-06T09:39:00.018+01:00

The fire sale is due, so here's our assessment of the worthiness of the rest of the Tigers squad...

19: Steven Mouyokolo
Genuinely sorry to say that he must go, simply because he is way too good for the Championship and has youth and exuberance of the type that half a dozen Premier League clubs would want dearly.
Verdict: Sell

20: George Boateng
Has opened his mouth a fair bit lately, but some of us interpret that as a sign of passion and responsibility, while his recent performances have, in the main, exhibited real desire to succeed. Out of contract in the summer and may not be interested in negotiating downwards, but of the bigger earners he is one who might, might be worth trying to persuade.
Verdict: Keep

21: Jimmy Bullard
Not so much whether to keep him, more a case of whether anyone else will have him. His knees are made of glass, his attitude has been suspect at best and age and ego are not on his side either. He must go, but if he does stay at least he should be the best player by a mile in the Championship, assuming he can be bothered to prove it.
Verdict: Sell

22: Dean Marney

Forever the underachiever and has recently been out of favour but he has workrate, Championship experience and longevity with the club on his side. If he can play in the second tier like he did in the first three months of the Premier League, we'll have a player.
Verdict: Keep

23: Kamel Ghilas
A true waste of everyone's time and Hull City's money, though the lack of real explanation as to why an international player hoping to feature at the World Cup has been so conspicuous by his absence remains baffling. Must have some ability to go with his obvious pace, but his wages and general lack of favour suggests we may never find out.
Verdict: Sell

24: Kamil Zayatte
Could be the biggest sale of the lot. A gifted and popular defender who can play a bit, and only the odd comical gaffe has blotted his copybook since arriving. The agent who has been trying to sell him for months now can actually do so.
Verdict: Sell

25: Daniel Cousin
He could score goals in the Championship but the risk when considering his mighty wage and tendency to strop suggests that making his loan move to the sunshine permanent, or making any other move permanent, would be the best thing for everyone.
Verdict: Sell

27: Nicky Featherstone
Will never be a fully-fledged first teamer and yet, after many years of never threatening to leave the fringes, has just signed a new one-year deal, possibly just to make sure that those who can be afforded long-term are retained first and foremost, but if and when things settle down, he should be allowed to move on.
Verdict: Sell

28: Ibrahima Sonko
He isn't ours, and should never have been. One assumes the haste and carelessness that came with the wretched deal in August did not include first refusal on a permanent move. Even in poverty, City can do better.
Verdict: Release

29: Jan Vennegoor of Hesselink

Earns too much but is a rare example of someone evidently trying to justify the outlay. Could be a brilliant guide and inspiration for the younger players coming through if he can be persuaded to sign a deal on reduced terms.
Verdict: Keep

31: Will Atkinson
Had impressed nobody on his few fleeting appearances in cup competitions over the last three seasons but his recent Premier League introduction will restore interest in him from within the club and will be retained and indulged just for the sake of bodies in the squad, though maybe now he has more hope.
Verdict: Keep

34: Mark Oxley
A goalkeeper we know next to nothing about, but one day one of the two senior keepers will be injured and somebody needs to be available to provide back up.
Verdict: Keep

35: Liam Cooper
Only injury has stopped him replicating the success of other youth products among the City squad, but already has proved his potential and promise to the extent that two or even three senior centre backs could be sold and City would still not need worry.
Verdict: Keep

36: Jamie Devitt
Never played for the first team, but two genuinely impressive loan spells in the bottom division this season suggest he has the ability to perform at Championship level, and certainly he should get his chance.
Verdict: Keep

44: Seyi Olofinjana

Would be a useful and dominant presence in the Championship but international ambitions and his own wages may prompt his departure, while he has never quite proved himself enough to either manager to suggest he is worth clinging on to.
Verdict: Sell

45: Tom Cairney
As much of a no-brainer as anyone else. The best footballer to emerge from City's ranks for probably three generations and even though richer clubs will have spotted him and may even bid, City should hold on to him for dear life and build a team around him until or unless someone offers to clear the debt in return for his talent.
Verdict: Keep

The fire sale (part one)

2010-05-05T16:19:00.017+01:00

It's well documented that Hull City need to get shut of several big earners, irrespective of their ability or attitude, in order to close just a little bit of the yawning financial vacuum currently threatening to send the Tigers into administration over the summer. So, over the next two days, let's have a look at the whole squad and see where these cuts can be made...

1: Boaz Myhill
Despite some hefty and largely over-the-top criticism of late, Myhill is still as good a goalkeeper as a club of City's standing can expect to attract, and he has experience, love of the club and relative cheapness to his advantage. His current status as substitute goalkeeper will be as temporary as the previous ones.
Verdict: Keep

3: Andy Dawson

Has occasionally looked like the lower division player he was much for his career, but is experienced, low-maintenance, utterly dedicated and more than adequate at Championship level.
Verdict: Keep

4: Ian Ashbee
Providing he is fit, the question about whether to keep the greatest skipper in the club's history is an evident no-brainer.
Verdict: Keep

5: Anthony Gardner
He came from Spurs and therefore can't be on a low wage, but one wonders if his injury record and general level of performance can attract a bidder. If not, then the question may depend on whether he had a relegation clause inserted into his contract. Beggars can't be choosers, however, and if a lower-half Premier League club comes in with a sum of money he must be allowed to leave.
Verdict: Sell

6: Paul McShane
Fits the double negative of these troubled times better than any other player in the squad - earns too much and not good enough. Again, one wonders if anyone would care to bid for him. Could still be useful in the Championship but his wages are a real problem.
Verdict: Sell

7: Craig Fagan
The Championship is his level, at best, and despite the chippiness overriding - and sometimes complete hiding - any genuine footballing ability, he is an inexpensive, committed and useful performer when his head is right.
Verdict: Keep

8: Nick Barmby
Despite his illustrious career he won't be on a fortune, and it's a question that will need to be answered soon as he is out of contract in the summer. His commitment and popularity will never be questioned, but at 36 he is showing definite signs of slowing down, and if he doesn't choose to retire, someone may be forced into a very awkward decision.
Verdict: Release

9: Jozy Altidore
Only gets mentioned as he is still technically a City player, even though he is essentially a dead duck as his red card against Sunderland ended his season and, given that Villareal want £6 million that we have no chance of paying, we are very unlikely to see him again. Fun while it lasted, and if he can work on his anticipation up front he'll be a good goalscorer for someone.
Verdict: Release

10: Geovanni

Tough one. His wages will be high without being astronomical and if he does hang around, the Championship will be his to dominate. But his attitude has been poor in the latter half of this season and there is the obvious danger that could extend into the new season. A club in the lower reaches of the Premier League should want him.
Verdict: Sell

11: Stephen Hunt
If one can assume high wages can ever be justified, then Hunt comes closest to proving it. Brilliant until his foot injury ended his season, that very injury means that few teams will look at him until he is fit again, by which time the Tigers will hopefully get three months out of him before January prompts his departure.
Verdict: Keep

12: Matt Duke
We've had the same two goalkeepers for a long time now, and although Duke is the current first-choice stopper, he isn't the best keeper at the club. But his attitude his spot on and, of course, his background means his wages will be manageable for a good while to come. If a League One team wants him to be first choice then there'd be no harm in letting him go but otherwise there's no urgency at all.
Verdict: Keep

13: Mark Cullen
One start, one goal, one of a few very bright prospects for the future on whose shoulders the revival of the club will be placed. His youth, plus his goalscoring record in the reserves, might prompt a few sniffs from bigger clubs but for now he is very much ours for keeps.
Verdict: Keep

14: Richard Garcia
Out of contract this summer and with little known dialogue taking place about renewal, the Australian may have played his last game for the club. However, he did have bright moments in the Premier League to go with the mainly disappointing periods, and he was quality in the Championship both for the Tigers and previously with Colchester.
Verdict: Renegotiate

15: Bernard Mendy

The great enigma, probably the most naturally gifted footballer at the club but with a stinking attitude that he gets away with thanks to eccentricities and a tendency to applaud the fans for self-aware long periods after games. He will have suitors from the Premier League and abroad, and the Tigers must cash in.
Verdict: Sell

16: Peter Halmosi
An outright failure since the day he arrived, and still has two years left on his contract. Yet he is clearly a gifted winger when circumstances allow, and it was his terrific performances in the Championship that tempted City to buy him in the first place. Home in Hungary on loan now but due back, and preferably to stay.
Verdict: Keep

17: Kevin Kilbane
He has simply never looked remotely good enough while, presumably, picking up a decent wage considering his Premier League pedigree and colossal tally of international caps. Again, one has to ask who would want him but there should be someone somewhere.
Verdict: Sell

18: Caleb Folan
A player simply not good enough for the Premier League but who has cheapness, at the very least, on his side as we drop down. If the more affluent strikers leave and there isn't much in the pot to get anyone in, we may be left with no choice. He did partially succeed in the Championship but was still upstaged by two other centre forwards.
Verdict: Keep

Part two tomorrow.

37: Wigan Athletic 2 - 2 Hull City - 03/05/2010

2010-05-04T10:58:00.010+01:00

Though it merely confirmed what we already knew, this single point was insufficient to at least prevent the big black 'R' from appearing next to the great name of Hull City for at least another week. Relegation is now rubberstamped, and although even the victory by ten goals that the Tiger Nation self-mockingly sang for throughout this game still wouldn't have done any good, it feels like a relief.

Galling, however, was that the Tigers didn't deserve to be relieved of two points in this game, and yet again it was an injury time goal that broke City's hearts. A team with a healthy and positive scattering of young talent therein had played Wigan off the park in the second half and taken a deserved lead, and only when the added time board went up did the Latics suddenly develop any sense of urgency, as if they felt being the only team to lose to Hull City on their own patch was a humiliation too awful to bear.

It was as typical as anything that has depressingly typified City over the generations that the last chance of a win on the road was swiped from their grasp in the closing seconds of the match. A win would also have completed an incongruous double, too. Steve Gohouri's spectacular but eminently preventable leveller after 92 minutes meant that the Tigers ended the season without a single away victory. Not even the really, really rubbish sides that were relegated in 1978 and twice in the 1990s could say that.

But it isn't a badge of honour. Deeply underperforming players on high wages have been our main problem this season, and such was their lack of bite on the road that this game represented the closest, even more so than Portsmouth a month or so ago, that the Tigers had come to ending a particularly bad run. And it was achieved, were a close-but-no-cigar game to be cast as any form of achievement, with two Premier League debutants whose rawness exudes pride and innocence and desire, the type that could have kept us in the Premier League had their well-reimbursed seniors shown even a modicum of it in the last six weeks.

Iain Dowie, not unexpectedly, gave Mark Cullen a start up front. Cullen is just 18 and therefore eligible to cast his vote on Thursday by a matter of mere weeks. He is tiny, slight and red-haired and will not be hard to recognise in the future, hopefully as much for his footballing promise as for his lack of physical stature. Will Atkinson also started a Premier League game for the first time, having enjoyed a good loan at Rochdale and previously been called into FA Cup and Carling Cup squads in the last three seasons without ever getting within even javelin-hurling distance of a chance at the highest level. Perhaps it patronises such players to essentially say to them that the game doesn't matter any more so they can play, but neither Atkinson nor Cullen showed signs of being talked down to. They were excellent. And, beyond that, they both had the nerve to score.

Dowie recalled Jan Vennegoor of Hesselink up front to give Cullen someone to look up to in every sense of the word. Kevin Kilbane earned - well, received - a recall to the left side of midfield and so did Tom Cairney, a peer of Cullen and Atkinson and yet already earmarked as possibly the player who could be the most influential on the team when life in the Championship returns in August.

Big names appeared on the bench but the biggest of the lot (salary, ego, level of expectation and disillusionment) in Jimmy Bullard did not even travel with the squad. There is hope yet.

City struggled to clear a pair of early balls into the area and Jordi Gomez hit a snapshot just wide, then both Anthony Gardner and Steven Mouyokolo threw themselves in the way of Hugo Rodallega after a neat tee-up from James McCarthy, blocking the drive bravely.

Cullen's first involvement came when he intercepted a terrible goal kick from Wigan's third string custodian Vladimir Stojkovic and exchanged passes with Atkinson before crossing towards Vennegoor of Hesselink, who got his head there first but could only guide it wide.

Andy Dawson then fed Kilbane's run down the left and a good pullback was met by a vigorous Atkinson shot which the keeper batted away. Atkinson and Vennegoor of Hesselink, continuing some good City pressure, each made fledgling runs through the Wigan backline and eventually the loose ball dropped to Kilbane, who got power into the shot but not quite the direction, hitting the side netting at Stojkovic's near post.

At the other end, Wigan came very close to opening the scoring when Rodallega found himself in the six yard box with just Matt Duke to beat, but Mouyokolo launched into a stunning block tackle of the type that makes good defenders into great ones, and the applause for this marvellous young player from the Tiger Nation was deservedly long and loud.

It didn't last as far as parity was concerned, however, as Wigan took the lead on the half hour. A set-piece was cleared to George Boateng whose ball down the flank was cut out, delivered into the feet of Victor Moses who exploited the City defence's belief that the danger was over by cutting into ample space around the edge of the box and belting a low shot beyond Duke and in via a post.

It could have been two soon afterwards when Moses missed his kick in front of goal after Ben Watson's corner was nodded back to him from the far post by Rodallega. City, however, re-found their attitude and an equaliser came just before the break.

Boateng broke down the right and crossed dangerously but Stojkovic got some purchase on his punch, though only finding Kilbane on the opposite side. He re-centred and Atkinson made a late and clever run to head firmly past the exposed keeper. Initially a flag went up for offside against Cullen, who had challenged for Boateng's initial ball, but referee Phil Dowd seemed inclined to overrule over the issue of not interfering with play and, after a quick check with his assistant, did just that. "We only want ten more," chanted the Tiger Nation...

So, all level at half time and with an away goal from a young debutant who has waited forever for a chance like this. It seemed promising.

City dominated the early part of the second half for possession but it was Wigan who were creating the opportunities. Duke saved with his feet as Rodallega hit a low one from distance, then both Rodallega and Gomez hit wide-angled snapshots just wide from well outside the box.

City then won a free kick, which Cairney swung in. A half clearance was nodded back in by Atkinson for Mouyokolo to turn and swipe wide, despite the promise of his position in the area. An offside flag gave him a little respite from the disbelief of all in the away end, and soon the Tigers had a genuine goal to savour anyway.

Another Cairney free kick, another clearance, and this time Boateng collected on the right. He delivered a second ball towards the far post and Cullen, showing terrific instinct and awareness that makes one believe he could succeed in the first team, ran beyond the last defender to nod in from five yards, before looking utterly bewildered by his achievement as the Tiger Nation celebrated before him and grown men jumped on his back.

There were 25 minutes left and the Tigers were by some range the better team now. Cairney, quiet in the first half but imperious in the second, pulled the strings in midfield and sent the new hero away after intercepting a bad clearance, but Cullen this time shot over. Caleb Folan came on and, after the customary offside decision against him and the usual search for blame away from his own wretched self, he managed to break clear once but was caught and robbed of the ball as he teed up a narrow-angled shot.

Wigan didn't look especially worried by the situation, which suggested they were either beach-bound or just shockingly arrogant. Then, when the board went up for three added minutes, they perked up. Stojkovic went forward for a corner, despite there being no value attached to garnering a point at all, and when City cleared to Cullen on halfway there seemed an opportunity. Cullen, inexperience aplenty, tried to do something urgent with the ball as he knew there was an unguarded net, slipped on the wet surface, and Gary Caldwell was able to clip it back into the box. It was nodded on at the far post for Gohouri to chest down with his back to Duke's goal and then smack an overhead kick beyond the keeper and into the roof of the net.

Wigan fans came on to the pitch to celebrate the least important goal of their season, which was as bemusing as it was gutting, and the final chance of chalking up an away win was gone. That we deserved to win will ultimately not be crucial when the table is examined at the end of the campaign, it will just show an embarrassing, horrid '0' under the away column headed with a 'W'.

The positives were plentiful in terms of the displays - and goals - of Atkinson and Cullen, while Cairney looks every inch a senior player now and Mouyokolo will benefit the Tigers much if recent performances are an accurate indication, in that he will either be the best defender in the Championship next season or will fetch a princely sum from a Premier League side that will help ease the huge financial burden that the club has to fend off over the summer. However, the overriding negative of yet again failing to win away, yet again conceding late on will remain. As good as City were, the match still showed plenty of reasons why, this season, we are not good enough.

Wigan Athletic: Stojkovic, Gohouri, Caldwell, Melchiot, Figueroa, Watson, McCarthy (Sinclair 65), Gomez (Scotland 79), Moses, Diame (Scharner 82), Rodallega. Subs not used: Pollitt, Boyce, Thomas, Mostoe.
Hull City: Duke, Mendy, Dawson, Gardner, Mouyokolo, Boateng, Cairney, Kilbane, Atkinson, Vennegoor of Hesselink (Folan 70), Cullen. Subs not used: Myhill, Cooper, Olofinjana, Barmby, Geovanni, Fagan.

But I know we'll win away, some sunny day

2010-05-02T19:51:00.007+01:00

Tomorrow marks the penultimate weekend of the season and the final awayday of this woebegone Premier League campaign.

Some may say there is nothing to play for. This blog suggests there is plenty to play for. A few thousand committed, maligned supporters who have watched the Tigers across the nation and have had very, very little to cheer when away from the KC Stadium.

Of course, the travels have produced some memorable days, for the right reasons. City were superb at Chelsea on the opening day and only lost bar a fluke goal in injury time. Boaz Myhill suffered mispronunciations of his name and mislabelling of his nationality as a consequence of the attention he got after single-handedly keeping Tottenham Hotspur out at White Hart Lane.

But the one thing that's missing from our season - apart from quality, obviously - is an away win. Hell, even Burnley have one of those. Don't spend too long trying to remember where it occurred. The point is that Wigan Athletic represents the last chance to secure a win on the road. Or, to put it less delicately, it represents the last chance to avoid becoming one of those teams whose season was so abject that they didn't manage a single away win. Even the poorest teams usually manage one.

We have only come close to it once, and that was at Portsmouth, when we led 2-1 in the 85th minute and still lost the game. For all Myhill's heroics at Spurs, we were never going to create anything at the other end. We could have won at Birmingham City but Iain Dowie's negativity put paid to that. We came from two goals down to get a point at Bolton Wanderers but didn't really get close to completing the comeback. The famous penalty earned us a point at Manchester City that was never going to transmogrify into three. Once we were pegged back to 1-1 at Wolves, we never looked likely to regain the lead and only Michael Turner's nether regions made sure we kept parity until the final whistle.

We last won at Fulham in March last year; the even more damning statistic is that is our only away win in 32 attempts. That's abysmal beyond even the standards of the Hull City teams of the darkest years in the 1990s.

There will be youngsters on show tomorrow, who will hopefully show the senior pros that survive the cut exactly what pride and professionalism is about. Dowie doesn't need to be cautious or negative any more. Play the kids, tell them to win, and tell them it's for us. We've earned it.

Ash

2010-04-29T19:25:00.008+01:00

How we have missed Ian Ashbee. How we have missed the club's greatest skipper, and certainly one of football's great skippers.

Had he been fit, and Michael Turner been kept - or even one of the above - then this blog is in no doubt that Hull City would have had a better season.

Ashbee has been out for almost exactly one year with the bad knee injury suffered at Aston Villa towards the end of last season. His absence has been noted not just as captain - the succession of players who have worn the armband without much talent for captaincy made it even more obvious, however - but as a cajoler, encourager, enforcer and the skilled moderator between players and club hierarchy he has always been.

We are not only lucky to have a smart, skilled youngster like Tom Cairney in our ranks. We're also lucky that when he leads our midfield next season, he'll have the best possible guide alongside him.

Anyway, Iain Dowie has claimed that "at a push", Ashbee could play for half an hour against Liverpool in the last game of the season a week on Sunday. Despite later saying it may still be too early as Ashbee is under orders to rest, this became a no-brainer as soon as Dowie chose to say it was doable.

The one time when there is room for sentiment in football is when neither you nor your opponents have anything to play for. By the time Liverpool visit the KC to bring down the curtain on our two years in the limelight, they will almost certainly know exactly where their European destiny lies irrespective of the result. Ashbee's semi-fitness should give him a place on the bench and with it, a chance to wear the Premier League crest on his sleeve one last time.

Bring back Warren Joyce

2010-04-27T16:05:00.010+01:00

Warren Joyce would be a fantastic and courageous choice as the next manager of Hull City, were Adam Pearson to decide we need one.

One would hope Pearson will indeed have established by now that restoring Phil Brown to his previous role would be an own goal that even Kamil Zayatte would think outlandish, while Iain Dowie's experimental period in charge has been a complete failure. Neither should have the job next season. Neither deserve it.

City are not in a financial position to go offering the job to highly-prized managers currently in work, so those suggesting Gary Johnson, Danny Wilson, Sean O'Driscoll or Lee Clark need to remove the rose-coloured specs. The salary that Pearson will probably need to offer with the role would also struggle to tempt good, unemployed managers like Tony Mowbray and Alan Curbishley - not to mention bad, unemployed managers like Gary Megson.

There are wildcards out there. Footballers and football people rate Jim Gannon extremely highly, but he refused to sign contracts with both Motherwell and Peterborough United because of family commitments in the north west. Paul Jewell has a good CV but is tarnished by his failure to make Derby County a success under the watchful eye of a certain Adam Pearson, who both hired him and fired him. Jim Magilton has good credentials as a coach but made little progress at Ipswich Town and struggled to keep the belief of the players in his last job at QPR.

So Pearson will need to dig deeper. And here is where Joyce comes in.

The former City player-manager is already a club legend as architect of the original and best Grest Escape campaign of 1999. Without wishing to belittle Brown's achievements of 2007 and 2009, there was no finer, more dramatic nor more important rescue act than that which Joyce achieved with a bunch of focussed cloggers and talented kids, especially as Joyce was not a popular player with the Tiger Nation when he was first asked to take over from the wretched Mark Hateley.

That Joyce was fired the next season by a dimwitted, impetuous and spiteful board of directors who wanted promotion to be handed on a plate remains one of the great scandals of Hull City's modern era. Joyce himself has kept a quiet, dignified silence when questioned in later years about the matter, but it still burns and rankles.

He was the one who first took Fraizer Campbell out of Manchester United when, as coach of Antwerp, he borrowed the raw young striker who promptly delivered a return of goals that was beyond stunning. Such was the impact of Joyce's time in the Belgian League that he was headhunted by Sir Alex Ferguson to become reserve team coach at Old Trafford, where he remains to this day. He and Ole Gunnar Solskjaer together have brought through Manchester United's latest supply of gifted youngsters now featuring semi-regularly in the first team.

He loves Hull City, will feel he has a job to finish off and the Tiger Nation utterly adores him. He won't be expensive, either in salary or in compensation, and he will not have his boss standing in his way. He can use his influence to persuade bright young stars of Manchester United's future to come play for the Tigers in the Championship. He can tap into the psyche of footballers of any age, ability or ego and, as the club looks to become a much more approachable, likeable and solvent entity after the recent excesses, he will bring some much needed humility to the task.

The more you think about it, the more sense it makes.

Push the Boat out?

2010-04-26T22:26:00.013+01:00

Hypocrisy appears next to the name of a relegated Premier League club almost as quickly as the bold 'R' in brackets.

The media, through distinguished columnists and much-decorated ex-players, has stuck an extra boot in on George Boateng following his decision to pin the blame for the drop squarely on Phil Brown.

For as much as Boateng was incorrect to hark back to Boxing Day 2008 as a starting point for where it all went wrong, the media is more than a bit rich criticising him for this when it has been at pains to bring up that wretched incident time and time again every time anything slightly went awry at the KC.

However, their main issue - that yet again a player was again trying to deflect blame for failure from other players - was observed correctly. Boateng has let himself down.

This blog loves Boateng. He has been an awesome presence in a team of misfits and malingerers over the last three months or so. But this outburst, controlled and articulate though it was, does him no favours at all.

He unwisely held court with any hack he could find to offer support and praise for the Iain Dowie regime while claiming, without any room for misunderstanding, that Brown's ego and inability to get on with certain players prompted unrest that lasted for many months.

And, of course, he took it all the way back to the team talk at Manchester City on that Boxing Day, claiming the players were unable to play for Brown effectively after he chose to dress them down for their 4-0 half time deficit in front of the travelling fans.

Boateng, whose dogged performances of late have at least enhanced any compulsion he felt to start pointing fingers, was quite wrong to wash quite so much dirty kit with the hacks. Evidently emotional and angry, he nonetheless owed it to his team-mates to keep his opinions to himself, especially those fellow senior professionals, like Nick Barmby and Andy Dawson, who have long claimed that the notorious alfresco lecture had no bearing on the subsequent slump.

His argument doesn't hold up for so many reasons. Without wishing to go through it again at any length, City followed the Manchester City debacle with a gritty performance against Aston Villa which was lost only thanks to a very late own goal. Boateng himself was not party to the team talk, having been substituted as part of the tactical shake-up just half an hour into the game. Paul McShane, on loan at the time of the game, didn't lose enough faith or respect for Brown not to sign for the Tigers permanently in August. And Boateng himself was one of the players enthusiastically seated on the same stretch of Mancunian turf this season when the scene was satirically re-enacted in celebration of Jimmy Bullard's penalty equaliser.

Opening up this can of worms again does not do justice to Boateng, a player and man of intelligence and experience. The automatic assumption was that he was still smarting, with justification, at being on Brown's 'naughty step' this season, along with other professionals, following differences of opinion on their form and roles within the team. He pointed out that he took a wage cut to come to the KC Stadium and was treated shabbily afterwards by virtue of that decision by Brown to scapegoat him as, one by one, the Manchester City goals flew in. Boateng too was incorrect to praise the attitude and activities of the Dowie management team, given that a meagre four points from 21 available, including defeats in shocking circumstances against the two sides below us in the table, does not remotely represent a breath of fresh air or an upturn in fortunes.

Those whose thoughts are dominated by conspiracy claim that, with Adam Pearson in the dismal position of being publicly unable to rule out Brown's return from gardening leave in the summer, Boateng was making the effort to show willing for the club in order to make Brown's already unfathomable return even more pointless and backward an exercise.

After all, Boateng has little to lose unless he is genuinely keen on staying with the club in the Championship. He is out of contract this summer and, although pushing 35 years of age, should receive at least one offer from lower-ranked Premier League outfits like Bolton Wanderers or Wigan Athletic to maintain a long-running and illustrious top-flight existence that began when he joined Coventry City in 1997.

Yet his on-pitch passion and seemingly ageless existence in recent times has suggested, through actions if not yet words, that he would like to maintain his connections with City next season and in these circumstances, knows that Brown's mooted, implausible return would severely hamper that aim.

Even if relations had improved between Boateng and Brown leading up to the Arsenal game (during which Boateng was sent off and after which Brown was handed his spade and shears by Pearson), clearly there was still ill-feeling there. Boateng had been cast aside earlier in the campaign by Brown and the Dutchman is obviously in possession of a long memory. His comments at the weekend would make his future with the Tigers untenable, even with Pearson acting as mediator, were Brown to return.

It should be a pointless argument, of course. A manager on gardening leave has never, to this blog's knowledge, returned to a club afterwards. Gardening leave was, in this instance, Pearson's chosen course of action simply because he couldn't afford to pay Brown off under the terms of his contract. That means he would have willingly sacked him on the spot had the financial position of the club been healthier. There is no grey area here.

Boateng therefore seems to hold the aces, even though he has been heavily criticised by pundits and columnists for what he said, while supporters have also accepted he made a bad judgement while also holding back on severely admonishing a player whose recent displays had at least done justice to the Tigers shirt.

It is tiresome to hear players blame anyone but themselves when things go pear-shaped, and while Brown has to take his share of the flak, so must Dowie, but most of all so must highly-paid and vastly underperforming members of the first team squad. Boateng can at least say with a clear conscience that he has done some good talking on the pitch, even if his talking off it has added extra fuel to a fire already roaring out of control.

36: Hull City 0 - 1 Sunderland - 24/04/2010

2010-04-24T18:32:00.014+01:00

It's hard to type with a heavy heart and fingers tired from defiant applauding. There may be no emboldened letter 'r' in brackets next to Hull City's name after today, but it's relegation nonetheless. Ultimately, a playing squad devoid of ideas and particularly devoid of goals simply wasn't good enough to, at best, prolong the agony.

The inquest will be long and harrowing. There was an £8million wage bill when the club were promoted; it is now in the region of the £40million mark while somehow dropping in quality. The figureheads that oversaw this quite extraordinary bit of malpractice will continue to offer excuses and issue strong denials. But the upshot is that relegation doesn't just mean the end of trips to Anfield and Old Trafford and a return to the Glanford Park and Ashton Gate, it also means a total decimation of the squad as the vultures emerge with undergenerous offers, knowing that the financial plight of the Tigers means that the better players - there are some - may be sold for a mere fraction of their true worth.

Their worth to Hull City right now is nil, really. They couldn't keep us up, after all. Against Sunderland with nothing to play for and an away record that, while nothing compared to ours, still is not something to be proud of, there was proper endeavour but just no quality at all. Jimmy Bullard, so much the talisman whether fit or not, was so abject he was substituted at half time. Geovanni, back in the starting XI, was much better but still couldn't produce any magic that once made him the subject of much discussion and praise. Sunderland were tidy and quite defensive and though they only scored one of their many early chances before letting the Tigers dominate, never looked in too much danger.

Michael Turner was playing for them and got an enormous cheer. Fraizer Campbell also figured and was regally barracked throughout. Had Turner stayed and Campbell signed - especially the former - there may have been a different story to the season. Hypotheticals are all we now have.

Geovanni's recall was accompanied by likewise for Anthony Gardner, Bernard Mendy, Nick Barmby, Jozy Altidore and Caleb Folan. Six alterations in all. It was a 4-4-2 as well, therefore necessitating the removal of the fabulous Tom Cairney, though he was on the bench.

Sunderland, with their usual full-throated and slightly charmless support (let's qualify this - Sunderland have superb supporters but given their numerous misfortunes at this level in recent times, slagging off a far smaller club for suffering a relegation not even remotely as humiliating as the one they suffered under Mick McCarthy smacked of utterly graceless idiots), took early control and could have been three up quite quickly. Campbell, playing wide in red boots, fed an overlap from Jordan Henderson with nobody tracking back, and the layback was wastefully belted over by Steed Malbranque.

It didn't take long to make up for this bad miss as Alan Hutton hit a smart cross to the far side of the area for Kenwyne Jones to nod goalwards and Darren Bent guided in a neat volley with little attention being paid to his run, leaving Matt Duke helpless. A simple goal, from Sunderland's point of view also a deserved and artistic goal, from the Tigers point of view a terrible goal.

The next chance quickly followed as Henderson curled one just over from a terrific long ball by Malbranque, before City finally made the visiting back four work. George Boateng crossed for Altidore to challenge the onrushing Craig Gordon near the edge of the box. The ball fell out of the box but the keeper inexplicably was more committed to a standard tackle than Bullard, who seemed to jump out of the way. Afterwards Barmby tried a shot on the turn from a rare bit of Folan craft - a dummy from Boateng's overhead punt - but Gordon had little trouble claiming it.

Geovanni then broke down the right and fed Barmby's run outside him, with Turner cutting out the dangerous low cross and forcing a corner. Bullard's kick then got to Folan at the far post but his control was dire and eventually he could only pass backwards to Boateng, with the eventual second ball from Bullard punched clear.

Duke held a Kieran Richardson free kick that found a hole in City's wall before City's first real bit of bad luck. Bullard swung in another corner and Gardner, very warmly welcome back after his ankle injury, won a clean and powerful header that Gordon kept out only by being directly in the way, as opposed to any really tangible effort to save.

Altidore then won a free kick on the counter attack which Bullard chipped in and Barmby headed over, then Altidore got Folan free on a counter attack and the lolloping City forward tried a low shot aimed for Gordon's near post which the keeper managed to palm out of play.

Folan's one telling contribution then followed, when he unusually fought like a wild animal to get possession of the ball on the edge of the box and when Geovanni took possession of the loosened ball, a wild boot chopped him down. The penalty was obvious but Bullard really picked his moment to miss his first spot kick for the club, smacking the outside of the post with his low shot.

Geovanni was fouled again shortly afterwards and sent the free kick over, and in the five added minutes at the end Altidore and Hutton each received red cards after a tussle ended with the American striker aiming his head into the Scotsman's face. Unquestionably a foul and red card, but there was an outcry from the Sunderland contingent when Hutton, whose brand of overacting could have had him in rep, also saw red. Why Steve Bruce felt the need to join in the altercations near the corner flag is anyone's guess.

That' the last time we shall see Altidore play for the Tigers, then. He may as well hop on a plane back to Spain or the USA right now, with our good wishes.

The half time whistle shrilled soon after the game finally got going again. That Cairney was ready to come on at the start of the second half was pleasing, that the previously undroppable Bullard was the player withdrawn was greeted with unforgiving approval. Bullard may have had a knock, of course, but for a player of his class and importance he has delivered next to nothing in recent times. Iain Dowie, for all his faults, called this one correctly. A player who cared replaced one whose attitude was questionable, to put it charitably.

Sunderland made two changes as not only had Hutton been dismissed but Turner, who had been imperious as expected, had picked up an injury.

The early second half was only notable for the enormous chorus of the Great Escape that emerged from the Tiger Nation, as neither side created anything of worth and many were concentrating on whether Wigan Athletic could maintain or improve upon their level-pegging status at West Ham. Geovanni hit a free kick into the wall after Cairney was tripped by Campbell, and then the Brazilian was booked for diving while trying to win another set-piece on the edge of the box.

Dowie slung on Craig Fagan for Barmby, whose attitude was superb but contribution still muted. Fagan then, depressingly, chose to spend the majority of his gametime trying to wind up Richardson on the flank they shared. Meanwhile, Duke was called into action for the first time when tipping wide a Lorik Cana drive from long range, while Bruce's whingeing at the officials earned him a dismissal to the stands.

City's best chance - aside from the penalty - came when Mendy crossed from the edge of the area for Folan to nod back to a very advanced Andy Dawson, whose shot took a deflection and hit the trailing legs of an otherwise committed Gordon. It was as unlucky as City could have been.

Steven Mouyokolo looked after a Campbell counter attack with aplomb before David Meyler's left-footed follow up flew wide, then a Bent drive took a deflection off Gardner which made it an easier catch for the City custodian.

Dowie went for broke and withdrew the terrific Boateng - paid a lot, but worth it more than most, and one hopes he may sign a new deal for the Championship - and sent the youthful Mark Cullen into the Premier League for the first time. Cullen soon got into the action, floating a lovely ball on to Folan's head but the nod back from him and the rancorous effort at shooting from Fagan that followed was simply humiliating.

In the five added minutes, Mendy hit a low shot on target that Gordon held, and the Frenchman was one of two players - Mouyokolo being the other - who sank on to his back, distraught, when the final whistle sounded shortly afterwards. There were no tears - we've been through far worse than this - but mainly philosophical words and gestures, as if we knew it couldn't and wouldn't last. Sunderland's supporters were refreshingly sympathetic as they applauded the Tiger Nation prior to exiting the KC, happy with their own three points.

West Ham won, so at best we'll be relegated thanks purely to a woefully inferior goal difference. That tells its own tale, as for the thrashings we've taken there is more to be said for the utter ineptitude shown when trying to find the back of the net this season. Assuming we don't find Wigan on the beach next week (and even if we do the likelihood of scoring doesn't necessarily increase), we'll also end the season without a single away win.

This relegation is horrible and merciless and there will be plenty of Premier League stalwarts who will not be sorry to see us go. But make no mistake, it is a relegation we entirely deserve. Were it not for the frightening financial situation that now awaits us thanks to demotion, it'd be an easier relegation to take than any of those of 1978, 1981, 1991 and 1996, even though we were poor on the park and skint off it (and often both) on those occasions too. After all, this time round we've had a two-year stay in the top flight.

It really has been the very best trip we've ever been on. But now we may be about to embark on our worst. Over to you, Adam.

Hull City: Duke, Mendy, Dawson, Mouyokolo, Gardner, Boateng (Cullen 75), Bullard (Cairney 46), Barmby (Fagan 62), Geovanni, Folan, Altidore. Subs not used: Myhill, Sonko, Kilbane, Olofinjana.
Sunderland: Gordon, Hutton, Turner (Ferdinand 46), Kilgallon, Richardson, Malbranque (Bardsley 46), Henderson, Meyla, Campbell, Jones (Cana 60), Bent. Subs not used: Carson, Da Silva, Zenden, Mwaruwari.

Don't let it be over

2010-04-24T10:19:00.002+01:00

Most of us have been resigned to relegation since the Burnley debacle, never mind the awful night against Aston Villa that frittered away our one trump card of a game in hand.

But today is a new day, with a new game to play. So go on City, prolong the agony. Beat Sunderland and better what West Ham United do against Wigan. Put the work in. Make us sweat. Give us some of that horrible hope for a bit longer. Dare you.

Turner and Campbell

2010-04-23T21:29:00.007+01:00

Michael Turner comes back to the KC Stadium tomorrow in the unenviable position of being within a team that could relegate all his old muckers by the time 5pm comes round.

Turner has been a success at Sunderland, to whom Paul Duffen practically gave him away in August while brazenly telling all and sundry that the fee was huge, and he will be given the warmest of welcomes by the bedraggled Tiger Nation that never forgets a hero.

Oddly, while we'd kill to have Turner in our side again, the centre of defence has largely had not much wrong with it beyond the actual absence of the best player ever to wear Hull City colours in that - or any - position. Anthony Gardner and Kamil Zayatte have each had good, sturdy spells in the side, albeit with an isolated error each, while Steven Mouyokolo has been a terrific find and even Ibrahima Sonko, brought in as an unwanted temporary replacement for Turner as much to appease unrest as to plug any gaps, has been able to restore a soupcon of his crushed reputation.

But Turner, oh how we miss him. How we miss that reliability, that positional accuracy, that immense reading of the game, that step or two in his head that makes up for a lack of sheer pace. How me miss all of those things. How he will be loved forever for what he achieved at the club, and how his sale will always go down as the day Hull City's supporters and the hierarchy that secured Premier League status fell out of love.

The same can't be said of Fraizer Campbell, of course. He will be booed and barracked to high heaven by unforgiving types who recall the number of occasions he seemed set to rejoin us and then never did. Campbell has, worryingly, begun to find some scoring form at last for the club he eschewed the Tigers for last summer. If he finds a winning goal that sends us back to the Championship this weekend, it'll complete the most gruesome of turnarounds, given that he set up the goal at Wembley that got us out of there in the first place.

If Turner plays a blinder at the back, if Campbell scores a goal at the front, neither will be blamed. They're Sunderland players and a job is required of them. But in this bitterest of bitter, hateful campaigns, it'd be the icing on a deeply tasteless cake if one of these two heroes of such recent memory actively confirmed our descent back to the footballing abyss. At least with Turner, it'd be easily forgiven, and he won't celebrate at all. With Campbell, it'd be a different matter entirely.

35: Hull City 0 - 2 Aston Villa - 21/04/2010

2010-04-22T13:29:00.011+01:00

And so another nail takes a hammering. The game in hand has gone and with it, almost certainly, Hull City's status as a Premier League club.

Yet again we proved that the team isn't good enough, the risk on a new manager hasn't paid off and the future generally looks bleak. While there is much to be had from competing equally in the Championship and making the process of watching one's team fun again, there is a lot of doom and gloom abound after digesting Adam Pearson's programme notes. He criticised Paul Duffen again, which was both welcome and expected. But he left enough rope therein to allow a self-hanging in the summer if the anticipated relegation becomes reality. There is trouble ahead for the Tigers.

This knowledge almost makes the nature of last night's defeat to a polished but cynical Aston Villa side unimportant. Villa were better than City, as befitting of a side chasing a place in Europe's elite while steadfastly refusing to have anything resembling a squad big enough. Meanwhile, the Tigers sink merrily deeper, seemingly unaware of just how awful the football is despite the presence of a handful of players whose wages are far exceeding the level of talent or commitment on display.

Iain Dowie is going to fail. He won't accept that, but one suspects he knows it. One is certain that the chairman who took a spin on him knows it too, and is getting his retaliation in first. Pearson is a club legend forever but is unspeakably dreadful at picking managers, and yet it will still be his job to pick another in the summer. And even if, via a miracle that would make the burning bush extinguish itself in shame, the Tigers take nine points from the last three matches and survive, Dowie cannot stay.

He picked the 4-5-1 that did so well at Birmingham City and quite rightly. Yet once more he failed to turn it into a 4-4-2 when the state of the occasion demanded that the Tigers chanced their arm and attacked a little more. And, frankly, 4-4-2 is hardly taking a chance, is it? It's the natural formation. Dowie was unlucky to lose Jan Vennegoor of Hesselink to a vile head injury - the big Dutchman was unconscious before he hit the ground after the foreheads of he and Richard Dunne made sickening contact - and so Jozy Altidore's introduction was unavoidably like for like. But when, with the score only 1-0 to Villa, Geovanni was summoned, it was the impishly brilliant Tom Cairney instead of the woefully short - of skill, pace, direction, touch, you name it - Kevin Kilbane who was dragged off. And the catcalls from the Tiger Nation were loud and long and fierce for it.

Soon afterwards, Villa got their second and were strolling to a win that they didn't really have to work too hard for. City began to embarrass us all, with touches going awry and tackles being missed and passes being not just misplaced, but largely invisible full stop. Paul McShane has never played a worse game of football in his life, and plenty of Sunderland fans will laugh at that thought. Craig Fagan was all kill and no skill, everything that creates despair in him. Jimmy Bullard reverted to his deeper position and looked for full backs only. The centre backs, less culpable than anyone else, were devoid of assistance as Villa chose, sometimes, to go for more goals. It wasn't as bad as Burnley but that is more from the caveat of who the opposition were rather than from any real improvement.

Villa had the first chance of the game when Carlos Cuellar headed right at Matt Duke from a Stewart Downing set-piece. City responded with Kilbane spooning a reasonable chance far, far over the crossbar after Vennegoor of Hesselink had nodded an Andy Dawson cross into his path.

Cairney lost the ball in midfield for the only time in the game but nearly cost City dear as James Milner charged on to the loose ball and exploited the space but screwed his shot wide. It wasn't going to take long, it seemed, for Villa to get their opening goal, though they did so through circumstances that all of the travelling Villa fans - and how few of those there were - would have found richly comical.

A ball was played into the Tigers box. Ibrahima Sonko tried to clear and hit a Villa body. It went to McShane and he tried to clear and it hit a Villa body, again. The ball ricocheted wide for Gabriel Agbonlahor who collected, sized up where the space on a quickly guarded goal was and promptly found it, with Duke's hand and two leaping outfield players each beaten by the accuracy of the shot.

A fantastic finish, but a chance that should never have even remotely gone Agbonlahor's way.

Stiliyan Petrov then tested Duke's fingertips from distance before City responded with their only real spell of pressure. George Boateng won a splendid tackle to release Kilbane, who got Vennegoor of Hesselink in on goal. Brad Friedel blocked but Kilbane followed up, hit one shot at a covering defender, a second at another defender, and then the third, with the ball now in front of goal, at the one Villa player left on the goalline with everyone else on the deck. Kilbane essentially was one on one with a player who wasn't allowed to handle the ball. He failed.

Dawson tried a free kick which cleared the wall and hit the target but was easily clutched by the astute Friedel, who knew where it was going before it was kicked.

A chunk of the first half remained with no chances resulting and lots of delaying tactics from Villa players, with Stephen Warnock and Ashley Young especially guilty. It was frustrating stuff but Villa have form for this sort of thing, and they remain the most cynical and deceitful team at this level, getting away with much of it because they have English players at the forefront of it. Warnock was especially loathsome.

The second half started with Cairney enjoying a fine run in and out of three players before giving Fagan a crossing chance that ended up as a corner. It came to nothing, but Sonko's long throws proved a semi-effective weapon thereafter, and Vennegoor of Hesselink hit a volley into the ground from one such howitzer that Friedel tipped over. From the corner, Vennegoor of Hesselink suffered his head injury.

There was a ten minute delay, caused as much by the slowness of the stretcher bearers in actually getting to the stricken player as by the injury itself. Altidore eventually came on and 4-5-1 was maintained, but little else. Sonko chucked in more throws, Dunne dealt with them simply and confidently. Cairney took one gorgeous corner that Steven Mouyokolo headed wide, then a counter-attacking Agbonlahor went for the long-range curler after John Carew's layback, but Duke did well to touch it over when it looked destined for the net.

Geovanni was seen to be getting ready to come on at this stage. Now, the Brazilian hasn't looked committed from what little football he has had of late, but even so the extra pace on the ball and vision made him seem perfect. Kilbane, unable to look the correct way, let alone make any kind of contribution as a football player, could be withdrawn and City would charge after an equaliser. At worst, Fagan could be yanked away from the scene after a particularly unpleasant evening of whinging and strutting not backed by footballing prowess.

But Dowie took off Cairney.

Cairney had been booked but had also been in total control of City's ratio of possession, more so even than Bullard. The reaction of the crowd brought back memories of how Geovanni's own withdrawal against Blackburn Rovers last season was greeted, only this time it was far more deserved. Dowie called it wrong. Dowie made a change not to improve, but to maintain. Taking off a less cultured player than Cairney may still not have worked, but it would at least have given an indication that City were trying to get back into the game. Like for like does not do this, especially when the player taken out of the equation was the one who seemed most competent on the ball.

Carew countered from another Sonko long throw and, with City struggling to get bodies back, fed Milner who reached the area, slipped inside Boateng and had his ankle taken. Penalty without argument, and Milner himself sent Duke the wrong way very neatly.

Dowie put Kilbane out of our misery afterwards and sent on Seyi Olofinjana, but the remainder of the game was played out without signs of life, hope or commitment, and that is as much a description of the Tiger Nation as it is of the team. We're beaten. We're spent. And we're down. Open the inquest now. There's no point at looking at our three remaining games, nor those of West Ham United immediately above us, as we simply will not get another point all season.

Hull City: Duke, McShane, Dawson, Sonko, Mouyokolo, Boateng, Cairney (Geovanni 70), Bullard, Kilbane (Olofinjana 84), Fagan, Vennegoor of Hesselink (Altidore 54). Subs not used: Myhill, Cooper, Barmby, Cullen.
Aston Villa: Friedel, Cuellar, Warnock, Dunne, Collins, Downing, Milner, Petrov (Sidwell 84), A.Young, Carew (Heskey 90), Agbonlahor. Subs not used: Guzan, L.Young, Beye, Reo-Coker, Delfouneso.

Play the five again

2010-04-21T10:25:00.011+01:00

As Iain Dowie shifts unpopularly towards another 4-5-1 set-up against Aston Villa tonight, the reason for it seems pretty clear. In fact there are two reasons for it - Tom Cairney and Kevin Kilbane.

It feels close to our last chance to stay in the fight for survival tonight, as this is the game in hand we've had on everyone else for quite some time. It should have taken place at the end of February but Villa's involvement in the Carling Cup final put paid to that.

Now, with only ourselves to worry about as we prepare for a truly enormous occasion for the Tigers, our temporary football management consultant seems set to stick with the 4-5-1 formation. It is obviously going to be greeted with howls of derision when we need to win the game, but it's worth examining why he is looking at it.

Firstly, it worked well and looked quite good at Birmingham City. Dowie's only error was not changing to a 4-4-2 when bringing on Jozy Altidore as the hosts evidently were struggling to cope with City even with one striker and a packed midfield. He thought it was winnable with 4-5-1 to the end. Better finishing suggests he would have been right, but in a squad devoid of killer finishers, he took off the best the club has to offer in Jan Vennegoor of Hesselink when adding Altidore's power to the front line.

Secondly, the team is simply a better thing for Tom Cairney's presence within it, but although his defending is improving, there is simply no place for him in a 4-4-2 that also needs to accommodate Jimmy Bullard and somebody of an attacking bent in a wide position, who currently is Craig Fagan. For all Kilbane's laughable inabilities with a football, he is a steady influence, both as player and talker, and adds the insurance required that permits Cairney and Bullard to roam and scamper about with the ball at their feet. Kilbane adds little in attack, though he does get into attacking positions, but a four-man midfield which requires Cairney to play wider and operate as a defensive player as much as his marvellous touch gets him forward, is asking for bother. George Boateng can protect one. He can't protect two.

A 4-4-2 formation is, of course, preferable in the current Tigers situation, especially as it would - assuming Dowie has noticed this - pair Altidore and Vennegoor of Hesselink up front again. But the downside is that in the midfield, it wouldn't be Kilbane who would get sacrificed, it would be Cairney.

Dowie is within his right to stick with the 4-5-1 - and, frankly, the actual XI that began the Birmingham game within that formation. However, if things need to be stepped up with an hour gone, and the game feels winnable or salvageable, he has to grab the bull by the horns and use his substitution to create a 4-4-2. There are players like Seyi Olofinjana knocking about if we then need to re-strengthen the centre of the park in the event of having a lead to defend.

Cairney, unless he directly replaces Bullard, does not belong in a 4-4-2. It really is that straightforward.

34: Birmingham City 0 - 0 Hull City - 17/04/2010

2010-04-17T21:03:00.007+01:00

And so the mantra of hope over despair is maintained. A nervy, battling, often enjoyable performance by Hull City which, with just a little more finishing prowess, would have been a stunning and timely three points instead of the adequate one.

The Tigers were helped by some effective and subtle team changes by Iain Dowie, although his selection in goal of Matt Duke over Boaz Myhill was as surprising as it was pointless, and an obviously dozy Birmingham City whose work this season is done and who are all looking forward far too prematurely to a tropical island and a big telly beamed in on South Africa.

Dowie also restored Jan Vennegoor of Hesselink up front but in doing so again erased the name of Jozy Altidore from the teamsheet. Yet has he to see the potential of the American-Dutch partnership that briefly looked so useful in Phil Brown's last throes, but there was at least progress in his thinking by the absence of Caleb Folan entirely from the side. Also returning was Tom Cairney within a five-man midfield.

Birmingham had the first chance as James McFadden volleyed a half-cleared corner from Craig Gardner over the bar and then Scott Dann was wide with a glancing header from another Gardner set-piece. The game settled quickly and, with springtime sunshine beating down on St Andrew's, City began to get more involved.

Jimmy Bullard, with his head up throughout the game, swapped passes with the selfless Vennegoor of Hesselink to send George Boateng free to the byline. The marking had not materialised at all by the time the low cross reached Kevin Kilbane with pretty much an open goal before him, but the ball ran under his feet. A seriously big chance wasted, but the resourcefulness of the move suggested that the Tigers were capable of creating similarly good openings again.

Paul McShane cleared under pressure from Cameron Jerome after Duke could only palm to one side a Gardner shot before City countered thanks to Bullard's renewed desire to advance with the ball, and he tried two shots from distance which were saved by Joe Hart and deflected into touch respectively. Craig Fagan, back at his first club, sliced a reasonable chance high and wide after Vennegoor of Hesselink nodded Bullard's chipped pass into his path.

Birmingham then saw City bodies get in the way of good chances, with Steven Mouyokolo's crunching challenge on Keith Fahey earning him rapturous acclaim from the Tiger Nation, and then Cairney also putting a sturdy foot in the way of Jerome's effort after City had been caught out by a quick throw. The ball looped into the air and Lee Bowyer headed over the bar.

Duke then saved a Bowyer shot with a full airborne stretch, a stop that was to prove his most taxing moment of the day as Birmingham began to wilt, dropping back as the break approached and giving the Tigers, and especially Bullard, more of the ball. Vennegoor of Hesselink plunged at a low Andy Dawson cross to aim a fierce diving header towards Hart's near post but the keeper managed a tidy and instinctive save. The tall Dutchman managed a further header shortly afterwards from a Fagan centre but it was weaker and caused little trouble for Hart.

Half time came and went with, as usual in these situations, the Tiger Nation expressing hope and immediately cursing themselves for doing so.

But it was worth expressing as City were by far the better team in the second half. Instantly Kilbane won a corner which Bullard curled in dangerously for Mouyokolo to head on and Boateng to volley over after a Birmingham forehead only got half the required power into the clearance. Encouraging start, made more so by the wonderful Cairney weaving through three players, determined to find room for a shot that, when it came, was too high.

As the game began to open up, Dowie got Altidore ready and we awaited the restoration of the big two up front. But alas, it was Vennegoor of Hesselink's number that was raised but at least with Altidore on the park there would be mobility as well as brute force to work Birmingham's tiring defenders. He was roared on with real enthusiasm by the Tiger Nation.

Birmingham counter attacked from an Ibrahima Sonko long throw but Jerome's final shot was deflected wide by a chasing McShane, who had initially struggled to see the ball arrowing his way from the Birmingham half thanks to the sun. From the corner, City launched their own counter which involved Altidore burrowing through, round and eventually past Roger Johnson to get to the byline, only to concede a soft free kick as the defender went to the turf.

Bullard, utterly dominant of the ball now, tried a poked shot that had in timing what it lacked in power, and Hart was very nearly fooled but still managed to grab at the goalbound shot. Altidore and Cairney then exchanged passes with real beauty before Cairney hit a shot with the outside of his left boot that was only just wide.

Injury time was underway by the time Fagan hit the final chance just wide from a volley that came his way after Bullard's cross was cleared. The final whistle confirmed a goalless game but anything but a soulless effort from the Tigers, and while a point only represents a hollow victory following that awful display against Burnley a week ago, it also indicates there is still spirit and desire in the squad to do the right thing by us all. It was a fine game and so nearly the finest of results, and much credit should offered to all involved.

Birmingham City: Hart, Carr, Ridgewell, Johnson, Dann, Bowyer, Ferguson, Fahey (Larsson 63), McFadden (Phillips 60), Jerome, Gardner. Subs not used: Taylor, Parnaby, Madera, Vignal, Benitez.

Hull City: Duke, McShane, Dawson, Mouyokolo, Sonko, Boateng, Cairney, Bullard, Kilbane, Fagan, Vennegoor of Hesselink (Altidore 75). Subs not used: Myhill, Cooper, Marney, Olofinjana, Barmby, Geovanni.

Barmby no more

2010-04-16T13:40:00.006+01:00

Nick Barmby's introduction to the fray early in the second half against Burnley last week was Iain Dowie's biggest mistake of the day.

While it would be unjust and inaccurate to say that sending Barmby on directly caused the collapse that everyone has been apologising for this week, there is no doubt that the player's existence as a first team option is done so with misted eyes.

Barmby is 36 years old and really, really looks it now. He looks exhausted, fed up and unmotivated. It's a difficult situation when you are introduced to a match that is being contested tightly between two sides that dare not lose, but experience teaches players how to deal with such a situation. Barmby's experience now looks no longer like it can carry him through. He needs to donate more, and he can't.

When Andy Dawson got injured, Kevin Kilbane had to fill in at left back and so a gap was opened on the left side of midfield. Barmby played there with some regularity in both League One and the Championship, smoking cigars of comfort throughout, but simply is not up with the pace and quality that Premier League opponents foist upon you. But Dowie chose what he thought was the safe option and let him loose. Instantly Barmby committed a foul; soon afterwards he was being booked for another. He barely touched the ball, complained a hell of a lot and, surprisingly for a chap who empathises so much with the supporters, did a swift disappearing act at the final whistle.

Dowie had better options with Geovanni and Tom Cairney, and although he did later bring on the Brazilian, swapping flanks with Barmby in the process, he should have done so the moment Dawson went down. Seven players hogged the bench and Geovanni was distantly the most talented. The game was level and tight and needed inspiration which Jimmy Bullard didn't seem inclined to provide. Geovanni might not have done so either, but there was more than a fighting chance that he could, something which Barmby simply does not give any more.

Barmby has been a fabulous footballer and had a terrific, varied career. His story, when he publishes it, will be an intriguing and lucrative one. But the contract expires this summer and even if City are in the Championship, the time will have come for the club to ask him to take up a fresh role, one that doesn't involve kicking a ball - indeed, his current one doesn't involve much kicking of a ball even when he is on the pitch.

The moment he accepts it is over for him as a player we can all immediately remember just how great a player he was. At the moment, we seem to have forgotten.

Billy and Nicky

2010-04-15T10:08:00.018+01:00

It is nice to see two former Hull City strikers conspiring, albeit unwittingly, to prevent Leeds United from leaving the tier of football they arrogantly believe is beneath them.

At Swindon Town, the most unlikely of the teams challenging for automatic promotion from League One, Billy Paynter cannot stop scoring. At this level, as he proved in his early days at Port Vale, he can be a prolific and reliable centre forward and this season he has been helped by the fairytale that comes with his similarly lethal strike partner Charlie Austin, who was a bricklayer picking up £80 quid extra a week playing for Poole Town last season.

Paynter was, in essence, a classic Peter Taylor signing when he joined the Tigers on loan from Port Vale in November 2005. Taylor wanted to develop his side by recruiting from below and turning promising talents into the finished article. He had suffered burned fingers with strikers the year before, despite the heroic promotion into the Championship, as none of his three signings - Aaron Wilbraham, Delroy Facey and Jon Walters - had worked, with the goals that took City up coming almost entirely from Stuart Elliott from wide positions. So alongside Paynter there were already question marks as the player himself was still unpacking his boots.

Paynter scored in his third game for the Tigers with a soaring header from a Mark Lynch cross as City grabbed a handy 2-2 draw at QPR. He then steered in a smart finish from close range at the KC in an impressive 2-0 win over Cardiff City, before hammering in a truly memorable half volley from distance in a Boxing Day draw at Crewe Alexandra that was just as famous for Taylor's oddball substitutions prompting a rather cruel catcall of "you don't know what you're doing" from a Tiger Nation that had conveniently forgotten the two consecutive promotions this manager had already achieved. On New Year's Eve 2005, Paynter hit the woodwork at Leeds United as City lost 2-0.

Taylor signed Paynter permanently when the January window opened, but also memorably signed Jon Parkin from Macclesfield Town within the same trading period. Parkin's arrival was greeted with great scorn from supporters who remember his comical awfulness in the lower divisions, but Parkin became an instant hero, battering defenders with aplomb while also showing poise and touch and an eye for goal that pushed the nose of Paynter out of joint. It is notable that Paynter played almost entirely as a right-sided midfielder for the remainder of the season, if he was selected at all, and never scored again for the club. Taylor's departure in the summer heralded Paynter's too, with Phil Parkinson choosing to sell him to Southend United upon becoming the new Tigers boss.

Parkinson also let Ben Burgess go during the same period, meaning he had room to invest in two new centre forwards which, judging by City's cringeworthily poor start to the season, the team needed with urgency. He bought Michael Bridges from Carlisle United and also Nicky Forster from Ipswich Town. Forster was a prime example of second tier experience and was just the kind of player City required.

As Parkinson's tactical vacuum plunged City into deeper and deeper trouble, however, Forster began to take some stick. He was absent from games for long periods although it was less than helpful that Parkinson had made a panicky switch from possession football to long humps upfield - Forster being a much smaller target than the likes of Bridges and Parkin, as well as Paynter and Burgess.

Forster touched in his first goal for City at Colchester United on a Tuesday night, more than two months after his Tigers debut. It was a shinner from little more than a yard that even then he very nearly missed. But it provided us with hope that he would now settle into the ways of Hull City a bit better. None of us reckoned without Colchester's sense of injustice at the way Parkinson walked away from them in the summer to become the new City manager, and they scored five without response and provoked the first serious calls for the new gaffer to be replaced.

Parkinson did indeed go a few days later after a similarly catastrophic performance and defeat against Southampton. Even though he and Forster were longtime pals, having played together at Reading, the departure of Parkinson seemed to bring out the best in Forster, as if he now had room to prove that he was no puppet, no signing under the old pals act and still able to commit himself as a professional to a club that had paid quite a sum for an ageing player and expected a return. Phil Brown took over as manager and Forster scored a brave headed equaliser to earn a 1-1 draw in the FA Cup third round against Premier League side Middlesbrough, before putting in a superbly selfless and indefatigable shift in a fantastic replay at the Riverside, winning a penalty and generally stretching the Boro defence throughout. City lost 4-3 but did so from positions of 3-0 and 4-1 down.

Forster had the crowd on his side after this display on Teesside. He scored the equaliser in a home game against Leeds United, of all teams, which had become a relegation battle as well as fixture brimming with contempt and mutual dislike. City lost the game 2-1 but Forster's socks were entirely absent at the final whistle from all the running he had undergone.

At this point, Parkin had started to go off the rails entirely with his weight and attitude problems and so Forster, along with the re-recruited Dean Windass, became paramount to City's chances. Windass was far more prolific in front of goal but Forster had become revered for his attitude, more so when offered as a stark contrast to that of Parkin, whose presence became so disruptive that Brown packed him off on loan to Stoke City.

Forster scored the opener in a fine 2-0 win over Preston North End and added further goals against Wolves and, once more, Colchester (this time a much less damaging 1-1 draw) and maintained his team player mentality as City battled and struggled through inconsistent runs that eventually allowed them to beat Cardiff City in the penultimate game of the campaign and stay up, deliciously at the expense of Leeds.

After survival was confirmed, Forster asked to leave City for the benefit of his family, who were still based in the south. Brown allowed him to join Brighton & Hove Albion, from where he has just rejoined Parkinson on a loan deal at Charlton Athletic. They have still to play Leeds as the promotion race hots up in League One.

As Hull City players, Paynter and Forster made contributions to games against Leeds that were memorable, if not always for the desired reason. Recently Paynter scored at Elland Road to help Swindon to a stunning - and most amusing - win there, and Forster has now propelled himself via a late loan move into the promotion race, and still has to face Leeds before the season is out.

Their impacts on the Tigers were short and variable, but each will be willed on from this part of the world as much as possible, as the only outcome that is good for football is pursued - that which prevents Leeds United from leaving the division they have always loftily claimed is not good enough for them. For that attitude alone they deserve to stay there forever.

See you Jimmy?

2010-04-13T15:53:00.011+01:00

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.

33: Hull City 1 - 4 Burnley - 10/04/2010

2010-04-11T05:27:00.002+01:00

So, that's that then. Any number of humiliations have been foisted upon the club following Burnley's astounding, devastating victory at the KC Stadium. This is Burnley, a team that had acquired the princely total of just one point away from home all season, managed by the dreaded Brian Laws, outplaying Hull City all over the park.

They looked better than the Tigers, they wanted it more, they were more positive, they cared dearly. Barring the initial period of the game, during which time City deceptively opened the scoring, the Tigers were as abject as it was possible to be. That such a turgid, dismal, gutless display came in a game when professionalism and heart was so badly needed and with the knowledge that a winner would give their survival hopes a major shot in the arm, suggests that the Premier League dream ended today.

Burnley were level before half time and won two penalties midway through the second half which were each confidently struck home by Graham Alexander. Upon the second of these spot kicks finding the net, the Tigers just wilted. Passes went astray, tackles were avoided, heads dropped or were just entirely lost. Some of the football from Iain Dowie's men was beyond awful. The upward mobility of the club over the last decade means it has been a while since a home crowd has booed a performance quite so heftily as they did today, but nobody could fail to understand the upset this display has caused.

Make no mistake, it was a shambles. Beyond that, it was a disgrace. The players didn't have a thing. By the time Burnley scored their fourth with a speculative free kick in injury time, the stadium was half empty and those who had stayed were, Burnley's ecstatic support aside, doing so purely to barrack the players. The money they are paid, coupled with the financial meltdown that could follow if the club is relegated, means that they cannot and should not complain for being treated so uncharitably.

Dowie picked a good side, it seemed. He got the call up front right, dropping the horrific Caleb Folan and restoring the far more effective Jozy Altidore. Ibrahima Sonko returned to defence after being ineligible last week, and Andy Dawson was fit to return to left back. Shuffles elsewhere saw Paul McShane and Bernard Mendy restored to their preferred positions on the right while Kevin Kilbane played on the left. George Boateng was fit to start despite having half his face kicked off a week ago.

City took an early lead and duly fooled us all about how they would approach the game. Jimmy Bullard was fouled by the referee saw an advantage as Craig Fagan took over possession and slipped a ball wide for Altidore to break the offside trap. The American's cross was gorgeous and there was Kilbane to head in unchallenged. It was his first goal for the club and as timely a moment to get it as any player could have managed.

So the script that we had all written prior to the game - dangerous to make assumptions, but the KC had been a good venue for the Tigers in 2010 while Burnley, lest we forget, had not won away all season - seemed to be on its predictable course. But City sat back way too much and barely got the chance to get forward effectively again. Burnley got into the game with Tyrone Mears hitting a distant left-footer over the bar and David Nugent cut inside McShane to shoot tamely at Boaz Myhill. The final efforts did not worry City but the possession ratio should have done.

Fagan had a chance he barely knew about when a long Sonko throw beat two aerial attempts to head clear and pretty much hit the unaware City forward as opposed to anything else. City then won a free kick in a promising position but Bullard's flick up and shot proved too ambitious and went over. The best real opportunity to extend the lead then came when Altidore turned divinely inside the box and hit his shot against Brian Jensen, with Bullard's follow up steered inches over the bar.

Burnley sensed their opportunity was approaching and took control of the game. The equaliser came in the final ten minutes of the half when Wade Elliott crossed low at the second attempt and Martin Paterson had time and room to turn in the box and guide a low shot beyond Myhill's right hand.

Little occurred up to half time thereafter, apart from Altidore being booked for petulance after giving away a free kick, and although City had not been good, the way Burnley failed to settle quickly suggested there was an opportunity to kill the game off in the second half. That was the optimist's view. And the optimist was soon keeping his counsel.

Soon after the restart, City were forced into a change when Dawson hurt his trailing leg in a fairly straightforward block tackle and was replaced by Nick Barmby, with Kilbane dropping back. Barmby's first contribution was to concede a free kick on the edge of the box and Mears' shot was deflected off the wall, wrongfooting Myhill but just clearing the bar. Paterson then put in a cross that ex-City defender Leon Cort, still up from a corner, plunged to reach but couldn't make contact. The ball got to Michael Duff at the far post whose control was shabby and shot hurried over the bar. A more cultured player would have scored. The Tiger Nation were not happy.

Fagan then crossed for Altidore to challenge Jensen in the box, with the burly keeper chasing the loose ball to the edge of the area and blocking Bullard's volleyed effort with his hand while perilously close to leaving his area. It was risky but sound goalkeeping. Mendy and Fagan were then booked for retribution and not retreating respectively as the game threatened to degenerate into something unwatchable.

Then Burnley took the lead. Duff, wearing a numberless shirt after spilling some blood in the first half, was chopped down by Steven Mouyokolo as the visitors tried to make room for a shot. Some grumbles, but it was hard to make a claim of any conviction that the penalty was wrong. Alexander, with his idiosyncratic method of approaching penalties, sent Myhill the wrong way with the outside of his boot.

Now there was a problem. City had gone behind but once the game restarted, it soon became obvious there was little appetite or idea as far as getting back into the match was concerned. Fagan could have scored when he sliced a half volley wide from Sonko's flick but that was all. Dowie tried to freshen up the attack by throwing Geovanni into the action, withdrawing McShane and sending Mendy back, but the Brazilian could not exercise any influence before Burnley had it sewn up.

Nugent seemed to handle the ball near halfway as he brought it under control, but once play was waved on he proceeded to weave through three wimpish efforts to bring him to a halt and had almost got to the byline in the box by the time Mendy hauled him down. It was a fine run but City's defence reacted appallingly. Mendy was lucky not to get a second yellow for the foul and Alexander used the same unusual method and the same corner of the net to defeat Myhill - who again dived the other way - and establish a two-goal lead. The Burnley fans, understandably, could not have been more gleeful if they tried.

City began to get petty and angry, but in a negative way. There was no sign of channeling that fierce energy into anything positive. Barmby was booked for a foul and had no right to moan at the decision as much as he did, Bullard dropped further and further back and began, remarkably but not entirely without reason, to take some stick from the furious Tiger Nation. The midfielder had hidden for much of the second half and now didn't seem to want to dictate the pace and direction of the game in the way everyone knows he can, and just at a time when it was required.

Dowie took Fagan off and sent on Jan Vennegoor of Hesselink, who quickly made a great chance for Altidore with a low cross shot but the American couldn't wrap his foot around the ball enough at the far post and the opportunity went begging. Altidore then made room for a shot from distance which was blocked, with Bullard's low follow up dribbling disappointingly wide.

By now, the final balls were as dreadful as we had seen in years and City were resorting to long punts that Cort, as the Tiger Nation remembers only too well, eats up for a light breakfast. Burnley were totally comfortable. Their fans fell off the happiness measurement scale and no doubt Laws, a manager with little love for City, was dying to leap up and down and rub it in the faces of all wearing black and amber.

Five minutes were added and Elliott scored a peculiar fourth when he took a shot from a wide free kick, on the reasonable understanding that a two-goal lead meant he didn't have to waste any time, and the ball looped over a surprised Myhill. The final whistle that came soon afterwards was greeted with loud heckles and ironic applause. The players, with the exception of Mouyokolo and Altidore, vanished down the tunnel as swiftly and as cowardly as they could.

Problems, then. This isn't the end, of course, although the game in hand is now irrelevant as West Ham United won and so City are now relying on others to make a contribution to what seems an unlikely claim to survival. Too many players failed to react to the importance of the occasion and now one hopes they feel some regret for throwing away a huge, huge chance to stay in command of their own destiny. Adam Pearson's gamble on a change of manager has, for the first time, backfired massively on him. Five games remain and in all honesty, City need to go unbeaten in the first four of them to keep hopes up, yet right now they seem unlikely to win again at all.

Well done to Burnley. They wanted this so much and got precisely what they deserved. It remains to be seen whether this historic win will ultimately prove a false dawn for them, but they have given themselves a chance. It is the act of a churl who does not wish them well after such a display, especially as any sour grapes will stem from the knowledge that Burnley's players did exactly what the Tiger Nation expected their players to do.

To be a fly on the wall of Phil Brown's drawing room right now...

Jay Jay

2010-04-10T09:08:00.011+01:00

We need today's enormous game against Burnley to go without a hitch. Given that we are Hull City, a club that has made it a 106 year long habit not to do things straightforwardly, we should still expect something unexpected to happen. Hopefully it won't extend to Burnley actually taking anything from the match, and the unexpected can be good - a Jozy Altidore hat-trick, for example - as well as bad.

Last time we played Burnley at the KC it was a raucous old affair, characterised by a marvellous half of football from the Tigers that had the game won, and then a bizarre breakdown in discipline from both sides in the second half that saw three players sent off.

One of these players was Jay Jay Okocha, and this red card was the only statistic aside from the 18 Championship appearances he would eventually card up for the Tigers by the end of the season. That he never scored - and, in truth, rarely created - a goal for City during his brief time with the club makes the sending off all the more bizarre.

It was March 2008 and the Tigers were sniffing a play-off place at the very least under Phil Brown. Okocha had joined as a 34 year old free agent in the September and had sporadically contributed to a slowly growing side mainly by name alone, frightening opposition players via his very existence. Obviously though, there were still occasions when he did frighteningly amazing things with a football.

At Wolves, a mere fortnight after joining, he ran the show so effortlessly that he was applauded off by the whole of Molineux when substituted late on. His only error was trying to get the ball off Dean Windass when the penalty that won the match was awarded to City.

Okocha had made his debut as a substitute the week before in a 1-1 draw with Stoke City at the KC Stadium. City were a goal down when he came on, and he spent his time on the pitch hitting pinpoint passes, long and short, shooting from impossible angles and at unexpected moments, and generally being a total thrill as well as a ridiculous novelty for a team that had relied on Ray Parlour as its veteran creator the year before. City got a late equaliser which had nothing to do with Okocha, unless Stoke were worried in advance about whether he would get the ball and therefore didn't notice where else it could go. It was David Livermore who scored with a close range header.

The other notable occasion for Okocha came on a blustery February evening at Norwich City. Again the game ended 1-1, which at this stage of the campaign was a very useful point for a Tigers team starting to believe that climbing the table was possible, and Okocha's glorious touch, appreciation of where the ball and the target player was and general smoothness in possession prompted the Norwich manager Glenn Roeder to pay a tribute afterwards that bordered on the obsequious and got a lot of headlines.

The rest of Okocha's time saw him dragged down a little by the demands of a less silky brand of football than that to which he was used. Often Brown wouldn't play him at all, and sometimes he would be on the bench. He did have injuries too, not least at the end of the season when he missed the run-in and the eventual play-off glory, but ten starts and eight appearances via the bench doesn't sound very much for a player drizzling with such special ability. For all that, City won the play-offs without him, beating at Wembley a Bristol City side that had taken four points off the Tigers during the regular season. In those two games, Okocha had been involved, albeit as a sub midway through the second half on each occasion. He was there at Wembley, in his training gear supporting the team, and was the first on to the pitch in the sponsors' T-shirt to congratulate the players on promotion to the Premier League. Brown chose to release him afterwards, and was right to do so.

And so to the red card, the last and only non-playing stat against Okocha's name. It had been a brilliant evening. City had played their most dominant half of football in years, with goals from Fraizer Campbell and a 25 yard strike from Richard Garcia (the goal of the season, even allowing for volleys at Wembley) securing a 2-0 half time lead against a Burnley team lacking any discernible interest in the competition.

The second half had been equally City's but without any further goals. Then Caleb Folan gave Stephen Caldwell an elbow off the ball and walked, with Caldwell getting yellow for the niggliness that preceded it. Caldwell himself got a second yellow and left the field a few minutes later after fouling Campbell. So, it was ten versus ten.

And then it was nine versus ten. Okocha stood innocently over another Burnley player in a horizontal position, Joey Gudjonsson, and even though the referee (Mike Riley, later to endear himself even less to the Tiger Nation with his antics at Arsenal in the FA Cup) saw nothing and had to consult a linesman, whose lack of excessive flagging suggested he had been equally unsighted, the two of them somehow concluded that Okocha had committed a heinous enough crime to receive a straight red card. The KC Stadium had never raged more in its short life than on that evening. Gudjonsson's own dismissal afterwards, making it nine versus nine, merely confirmed the farce that had unfurled itself.

And, apart from an 89th minute substitute appearance at Colchester United immediately after his three match ban had expired, we never saw Okocha in a City shirt again as injury took over. It had ended rather unfavourably for him, and he didn't have the impact many would have expected from a man of his phenomenal talent and experience, but the very fact that he made a contribution, small but noticeable, to our most triumphant season will live with a generation of Tigers fans forever.

Meanwhile, today's game against Burnley is very different, even though Garcia and Folan remain in the squad, among others, from the last time these two met. It'd be nice if we could replicate the dominance and goals and not the red cards.

Hunt for the truth

2010-04-09T14:31:00.009+01:00

Exactly what is going on with Stephen Hunt?

Hull City's most impressive performer this season has been absent with a foot injury since the 3-0 defeat to West Ham United at the end of February. The silence from the club about the extent and nature of the injury has been deafening ever since.

Week on week, we get a flat piece of unemotive news that Hunt will not play in the next game because of his foot injury. This includes this weekend's almighty visit of Burnley to the KC Stadium.

What we do know is that Hunt was struggling with the injury before he exited the first team. This begs the question as to whether he was playing through the pain barrier or if the club had misinterpreted the extent of the injury, thereby making it worse by playing him. Either way, the club needs to come clean. Hunt, of course, is best qualified to decide if his foot is up the rigours of Premier League tackling, especially given that he is the sort of character who blows the shorter fuses among top flight defenders and therefore falls victim to physical retribution, but ultimately the club has to execute a fragile balancing act between needing its best players and protecting their long term health.

Hunt's importance to the team is almost beyond measure and this is endorsed as much by his recent absence as it was previously by his 100 per cent appearance record up to and including the horror show at Upton Park. We have few players as good as Hunt; we certainly have nobody up to the task of directly replacing him, and playing the listless Kevin Kilbane or the right-footed Dean Marney wide on the left has merely served to emphasise just how huge Hunt's presence is.

So, is he going to play again this season? Does he need surgery? Did he exacerbate the injury by continuing to play? If the latter is true, it shows how desperately lacking in depth and talent our squad is. And although we should be capable of beating Burnley without Hunt in the side, it'd still be nice to have him available - and if he isn't available, then just tell us why and for how long. We're the ones hoping and praying for Premier League survival, and we'll know a lot better to we can raise our expectations if the truth about Hunt is explained.

Trust

2010-04-04T13:16:00.005+01:00

We have to trust Iain Dowie that he knows the best way to keep Hull City afloat in the Premier League. He has been appointed as a troubleshooter and has an almighty bonus coming his way if he succeeds. And if he does, he'll be worth every penny.

But it surely is the case that he is still learning about his players, and unfortunately he isn't really blessed with time to learn. This is why it is imperative that he allows Steve Parkin, the one remaining senior figure of Phil Brown's era, to offer advice and instruction as much as possible.

It seems that Parkin was offered a payout by the club upon Dowie's appointment and the first team coach declined, preferring instead to continue working with the players. This may have been for Parkin's own professional standards that he didn't just take the cheque, but we can be very grateful to him. It would have been madness for Dowie and his two new assistants to sever all ties with the regime they were replacing and just rely on their own instincts and the club dossiers to assess the squad inherited.

This is ever more the case with some of Dowie's selections. He's the manager, the tactician, the qualified coach and the communicator. He knows best. But while some fans are moronic, many more are not. We know that Jozy Altidore is a better footballer and more workable prospect than Caleb Folan. We've seen enough recent evidence of Altidore and plenty of past evidence of Folan to confirm that. And Dowie himself saw just how effective Altidore was, to the point of excluding almost all others, as City swatted aside Fulham last week.

So why drop Altidore? It was a baffling decision on a par with any of the bewildering eccentricities of Brown's latter selections. To be kind to Dowie, the last time he saw Folan - and the last time the rest of us saw Folan - the languid and half-interested centre forward was scoring two goals at Portsmouth. Even though we lost the game, there was obviously ample argument for keeping a player of severely restricted ability in the side, even though absolutely nobody believed he would reproduce the two-goal salvo, and would struggle to manage even a one-goal salvo.

But Folan, unluckily for him but an undisguised blessing for the rest of us, was ill. So Altidore played. And put in the sort of shift that Folan wouldn't manage on any sort of consistent basis at this level even if he were to drink from the cup of eternal life. He is not a good enough player nor a selfless enough player to do what Altidore did. He doesn't frighten defenders, only his own team-mates and the supporters of the side for whom he plays.

So there was reason, albeit one evoking empathy rather than sympathy, for Dowie to look again at Folan. But Altidore must have been raging, and as a player reliant on confidence and one who looks just outstanding when he has it, it is a worry as to how he will react once he does regain his side. Fortunately, his instant changing of the game upon replacing the rotten Folan just after the hour at Stoke City suggests his mental state has strengthened as he has become more suited to the physical needs of the Premier League. Forget his lack of goals, the boy is a fine footballer and we need him playing.

As for Dowie's decision to put Paul McShane at centre back, well that was a case of devil and deep blue sea. Kevin Kilbane could have played there, and would have done a better job (not just than McShane, but also that of his woeful efforts on the left of defence) but Dowie preferred to use Bernard Mendy's natural attacking instincts at full back rather than use Andy Dawson's more staid qualities on the other side. So of the two full backs, it was McShane asked to step inside. Wisdom after the event is fine, and you do have to feel for Dowie having to choose from two such unappealing candidates.

Parkin has been seen putting the squad through its warm-up at Dowie's three matches in charge. One hopes that there is more to his role under Dowie than this, and his experience of the players will also be eagerly scooped up by Dowie. It's hard to imagine Parkin telling Dowie that McShane would be the best choice for centre back, and certainly not that Folan was worthier for the starting XI than Altidore. Hopefully now, however, Dowie has worked this out for himself.

32: Stoke City 2 - 0 Hull City - 03/04/2010

2010-04-03T20:50:00.009+01:00

There were a lot of rumours flying around the concourses of the Britannia Stadium about Jozy Altidore's perceived indiscretion in training during the week. He had insulted the manager, goosed his wife, urinated in his petrol tank or set fire to his clipboard. And worse.

Something unspeakable must have happened anyway, as there could be no other rational explanation for Iain Dowie leaving him out in favour of Caleb Folan.

When one remembers how Altidore took Fulham on pretty much on his own at times last week, winning endless free kicks and instigating cautionable fouls one after another, it goes beyond all footballing sensibility to then conclude that a team trying to bring to a halt a period of more than a year without an away win, within a nerve-racking fight against relegation, would be better served by the preening, strutting and unproductive Folan instead of the young American.

But Dowie thought Folan was the better option. We knew he was wrong, and he realised it himself more than an hour into the game. He made the change, and instantly Altidore held of two Stoke defenders enjoying a game in their dinner jackets to set up City's first shots on goal.

That it took so long for any sort of chance to come showed just how toothless City were. Dowie picked Paul McShane to play in the centre of defence and his terrible error as he allowed the ball to bounce behind him let the rampaging Ricardo Fuller in for a simple opener after just six minutes. He injured himself in the process and had to be replaced at the break.

The goal set the tone for the game, as Stoke rarely looked bothered about extending their lead - indeed, only when Rory Delap was hurling in his long throws did they look inclined to try - while City's performance in the first half was dreadful, patterned with poor control, wayward passes and niggly fouls.

Only Glenn Whelan came close to making it 2-0, when City struggled on a Delap howitzer and he chested down the chance but then volleyed over. City forced one corner, right at the end, and Thomas Sorensen caught Jimmy Bullard's delivery under negligible pressure.

City started the second half better, and the largely frustrating Richard Garcia won three free kicks as he briefly found his touch, but Stoke's towering defence dealt with all three as Bullard's deliveries failed to find their target.

Dowie threw on Geovanni to rapturous cheers - the Brazilian has not been seen for a while - and withdrew the hardworking but bypassed Dean Marney, and then Folan was put out of our misery in place of Altidore, who immediately took on two men to get to the byline and went down. The referee waved play on as Geovanni took possession and laid the ball back for Craig Fagan to shoot, but it was blocked. George Boateng followed up but his shot too hit a Stoke body. But at last there was some urgency in the Tigers' play.

Jan Vennegoor of Hesselink then came on for Garcia and suddenly there were proven attacking footballers all working together. There was a real opportunity, especially as Bernard Mendy was starting to creep forward from right back and provide real danger on the flank that Garcia had not. But the last ball rarely found its target.

At the other end, Boaz Myhill saved well at the feet of Liam Lawrence after the ball broke to the Irishman from a Delap throw, then on the next Stoke attack Boateng flung himself at a cross and headed away but took a boot in the face in the process and was down for eight minutes before he was stretchered straight to an ambulance and away to hospital. With the subs already on, City had to end the match with ten men and simply didn't really have the guts or craft to manage it. There was only one chance, which Fagan crossed in after overlapping Mendy and Kevin Kilbane's stretching volley was too high.

Stoke won it in the last minute of normal time when Tuncay and Matthew Etherington swept passes along the area to the overlapping Lawrence who steered a precise shot into Myhill's far corner. Eight minutes were added and neither side felt the need to do anything productive with them.

So, another defeat, the wait goes on for a win on the road, but ultimately this season's destiny remains about the home matches. There are four still to come, with only two more away, and so events at the KC will shape the Tigers' future, and with Burnley arriving next week the timing could not, potentially, be better. Defeats like this are demoralising but with the situation around the Tigers concerning the lion's share of home games and the one extra fixture in hand, it is possible to forget this one and move on to one that actually matters. And hope Dowie doesn't let his odd fascination with Folan cloud his judgement again.

And well done to Stoke. An adversary very hard to love but their progress should be greeted with nothing but pure respect.

Stoke City: Sorensen, Higginbotham, Huth, Collins, Faye, Whelan (Whitehead 72), Etherington, Lawrence, Delap, Fuller (Tuncay 46), Kitson (Sadibe 84). Subs not used: Begovic, Shawcross, Wilkinson, Pugh.

Hull City: Myhill, Mendy, McShane, Mouyokolo, Kilbane, Boateng, Marney (Geovanni 58), Garcia (Vennegoor of Hesselink 72), Bullard, Folan (Altidore 64), Fagan. Subs not used: Duke, Dawson, Olofinjana, Barmby.

The central problem

2010-03-31T15:51:00.012+01:00

So, who is to play alongside Steven Mouyokolo at centre back on Saturday?

We're not exactly blessed with a list of mobile candidates. Anthony Gardner and Kamil Zayatte are a little way off recovering from their injuries yet. Ibrahima Sonko, back impressively from the cold against Fulham, is ineligible as we are playing his parent club.

So it's either a specialist rookie or one of two players who can fill in an emergency but prefer to play wider.

The rookie is Liam Cooper, whose two Premier League games so far have been against Liverpool (which he started) and Arsenal and he has not let himself down on either occasion, with his 40 minutes or so as Zayatte's replacement against the Gunners nearly three weeks ago showing enormous promise. But he has been injured and though likely to be fit, it's a big ask to throw him straight into the team without much in the way of sharpness or match practice.

But at least he is a specialist centre back. The alternatives are Paul McShane, currently testing many a patience at right back, and Kevin Kilbane, who has tested many a patience since the day he walked through the door more than a year ago, irrespective of where he plays.

McShane has a history of playing in the centre of defence and is movable due to Bernard Mendy's recovery from illness, but the Irishman didn't cover himself in glory when thrown into the central role at Portsmouth nearly a fortnight ago.

Kilbane, meanwhile, has played his best games for City when plunged into the role of emergency cover in the middle, but with Andy Dawson only 50-50 to return, there will be literally nobody suitable to play on the left of defence if he is shuffled inside and so his worth to the team may be required elsewhere.

In order then, the preference would be: a fit Cooper, and then a dispensable Kilbane, with McShane wandering in last resort territory. One wonders if Seyi Olofinjana can play in defence but that is an assumption based purely on his build, and not on any evidence of well-timed tackles, incisive reading of the game and instinctive mastering of an offside trap.

If Cooper is fit, then his time has properly come. Stoke City are a mean bunch with real strength and force up front and if Cooper is going to come of age as a Premier League defender, he needs to face such brutish strikers as much as he does those who rely on twinkly skills and sheer pace, as he did against Liverpool and Arsenal.

While there is an immediate defensive worry, Sonko's eligibility will cure the headache the moment the game at the Britannia Stadium is over, assuming no new crises emerge from it. However, the main conclusion we reach, irrespective of who does get the nod, is that Mouyokolo will be as vital as ever. At least our one properly fit and available central defender is on real form.

He's bang on the Marney

2010-03-30T23:05:00.006+01:00

It remains as fashionable in Hull as Henley T-shirts and holey jeans to scorn Dean Marney. Yet three games into his latest unheralded comeback, the hardworking midfielder could now become a crucial component of a relegation-threatened team.

The problem that Marney has always had since arriving in the summer of 2006 is that he doesn't live up to expectations. He was a successful graduate of the productive academy at Tottenham Hotspur and had scored a particularly famous goal against Everton which was dug out on YouTube over and over again by City fans from the moment he signed. But he has never been that player at the KC Stadium.

But he has something. More myopic members of the Tiger Nation see little in him. More rounded members of the same club notice at the very least his workrate - which has always been tremendous, irrespective of his or the team's form - whereas a sizeable handful also notice his inability to hide. There is a confidence issue with Marney but at least his way of trying to gain in confidence is to stay in the bearpit and keep trying, rather than hide away and look for a hug behind closed doors.

Of the current 20 or so players in regular contention for a place, Marney is, along with Richard Garcia, the least well regarded. Yet these two will remain solid performers when the chips are down for far longer than some of their gifted, higher-paid colleagues. They have both become emotionally attached to a club that gave them a new route into the Premier League when their nurturing clubs - Garcia was from the even more renowned West Ham United academy - decided they couldn't quite cut it. City made them into Premier League players again and, having lost that status once in their formative years, they don't fancy losing it again.

Marney's long cross for Craig Fagan to score the second goal against Fulham was described as a "peach" by a couple of Sunday hacks and was praised by television pundits. Yet the consensus of the less forgiving standing arms folded at the back of each home stand gave Marney little credit for vision or execution. Essentially, it was a fluke. This does Marney a disservice, especially as his confidence at having such an active assist in such a mightily crucial goal should, given the sort of player he is, help him develop his game further just when City need players with heart and belief to lead the charge out of the bottom three.

Lest we forget that three Hull City managers have now selected and praised Marney, while a further gaffer of even more reputation - the one beaten by City at the weekend - was rumoured to be interested in the player during the January window. That Marney didn't go to Fulham and play for Roy Hodgson was neither here nor there; the point was that a genuine connoisseur of football with a thirst and knowledge almost unmatchable among his peers saw the good in a player that the Tiger Nation has at best undervalued, at worst really disliked, during his time with the club. But when the final knockings on this season sound, Marney is one of those who'll still be working, still trying, still showing the desire to be part of the Premier League scenery, repaying the club that lay before him his path back into the big time. For this, he should be afforded proper credit.

31: Hull City 2 - 0 Fulham - 27/03/2010

2010-03-27T18:21:00.010Z

The relief and euphoria could be felt all around a bouncing KC Stadium as Hull City notched up a crucial, deserved win and manager-in-essence Iain Dowie punched the air for the benefit of the delighted supporters.

Lest we forget that Dowie has a professional reputation to enhance and a seven-figure bonus to chase, but it was clear that he felt the joy of everyone whose desire for success is dictated purely by the heart. And a terrific victory it was too, all the more so via the injury issues and consequent team changes that were necessary after last week's sickener at Portsmouth.

The remainder of the relegation scrap will raise eyebrows at the Fulham XI sent out, with their Premier League position secure and a huge Europa League tie imminent, and the half a dozen changes looked precisely so, but this still was not about their priorities. City were excellent.

Dowie himself had to pick Ibrahima Sonko in defence thanks to the injuries to three other specialist central defenders, and given his hurtfully poor record as an expensive loanee earlier this season, it was greeted with some trepidation. He was immense. And so was Steven Mouyokolo alongside him. Neither of them missed a trick, a tackle, a clearance. It's almost a pity that Sonko is ineligible next week, and will definitely be a pity if none of the crocked centre backs are recovered.

Also back in the team was Jozy Altidore, whose restoration was welcomed although only confirmed after Caleb Folan was taken ill in midweek. The American led from the front with a classic centre forward's performance of power, speed and bloody-mindedness and it was a pleasure to watch how much this youngster has grown as a Premier League player. Richard Garcia and George Boateng also began the game after coming off the bench and being suspended respectively a week ago.

Fulham made the first chance with Zoltan Gera hitting a low shot that Boaz Myhill had to parry to his right, although generally the Tigers were the team with the lion's share of possession and certainly the majority of interest in getting something. Fulham were lethargic and disorganised and that played right into City's hands.

The first goal came when Jimmy Bullard, abused by the travelling supporters, played a tidy through ball into the path of Altidore, who turned sweetly and had a sight of goal before being chopped down by Brede Hangeland. The penalty was obvious although the path of the ball meant no card - of any colour - was necessary, and Bullard sent Mark Schwarzer the wrong way from the spot.

City settled down a little but Fulham did then enjoy a brief spell of dominance. Myhill had to keep out a free kick from Nicky Shorey after seeing a late before Sonko then got his head in the way of the vicious follow-up from Simon Davies. Hangeland then won a header at a corner to give Gera room to turn and shoot past Myhill, but Boateng was there to hack it off the line.

Altidore, fouled through the game more often than most City players in recent memory, then won a free kick at shooting distance, and Bullard swerved his shot round the wall and forced Schwarzer to tip it round the post. The keeper did well from the resulting corner, batting away a point blank Dean Marney shot after Hangeland got a half-clearing header on to Bullard's kick.

Fulham nearly equalised when a clever move down the right flank got Gera through and he slipped a goalbound shot under Myhill only for Mouyokolo to get back and clear heroically off the line. Gera then went down in the box under a challenge from Kevin Kilbane - who had been booked already - but the referee gave the Tigers the free kick and booked the Hungarian for simulation.

The half time whistle was greeted rapturously, with City in charge both of the scoreline and the possession, although Fulham's effort had grown through the half and there was still work to do. Very soon after the restart, that work was done.

Kilbane fed Garcia down the left and the Australian drew his man before passing to the supporting Marney, whose high cross to the far post was met by a looping Craig Fagan header, and the ball followed the one bit of trajectory that would clear the huge Schwarzer and find the bottom corner of the net. It took an age to go in but once it was there, the stadium erupted.

Altidore nearly created another for Fagan when he squirmed clear of the last man on the byline and played a low ball across the six yard box that Schwarzer managed to intercept before Fagan could get to it.

Fulham made changes and began to step up their interest as City simultaneously let the pace drop. Shorey, oddly playing on the right, played a low ball to the edge of the box which striker Stefano Okaka hit low and on target but straight at Myhill. City then enjoyed a breakaway via Marney and Fagan, with the final ball reaching the overlapping Bullard who sliced his shot wide.

A minor scramble in the box handed out the palpitations for a brief moment before Okaka's final backheel was blocked and then belted clear by the immovable Mouyokolo. Dowie gave Altidore some respite from the kicks and hacks and threw on Jan Vennegoor of Hesselink, and almost immediately the Dutchman forced a corner from which Garcia headed straight at the keeper.

Bullard, who was fouled a couple of times towards the end and briefly chose not to get up straightaway, causing a few frowns of worry, received the deserved ovation of the crowd as he was brought off the field late on, with Seyi Olofinjana taking his place. Fulham had died their death by this point, and City were fortunate to be playing a side who, in a rare occurrence, no longer needed League points to either chase something or prevent something, and their European priority gave the Tigers plenty to aim for.

West Ham's defeat to Stoke means the table looks very interesting indeed. City are behind West Ham only on goal difference and have a game in hand too. Ironically, the Tigers are Stoke's next opponents and despite the difficulty accepted by football in general that goes with a trip there, City have a fine recent record. With a hapless Burnley side to follow at the KC, the next two weeks could be the two that make the long-term future of a few clubs clear. And if any of the threatened clubs could choose a situation to be in, they'd choose ours. We must not waste it.

Hull City: Myhill, McShane, Kilbane, Mouyokolo, Sonko, Boateng, Marney, Garcia, Bullard (Olofinjana 85), Fagan, Altidore (Vennegoor of Hesselink 78). Subs not used: Duke, Mendy, Barmby, Cairney, Geovanni.
Fulham: Schwarzer, Baird, Hangeland, Shorey, Konchesky, Smalling, Gera, Riise (Okaka 53), Dempsey, Davies, Dikgacoi (Greening 59). Subs not used: Zuberbuhler, Hughes, Stoor, Etuhu, Nevland.

Cairney kick it? Now he can

2010-03-26T21:49:00.009Z

Tom Cairney's daft contract problem is solved, and the supremely gifted youngster has signed his new deal.

It's a relief, and the previous couple of weeks of wrangling seem to have been little more than a waste of time for everyone concerned. But hopefully now Cairney has learned that he has to be advised for his own benefit, and not for that of his advisors. Agents will get their cut anyway, but the good ones make sure the best deal remains that for the player.

Cairney was dropped from the squad for the Arsenal game after an unlicensed advisor, believed to be the teenager's solicitor, got involved in the deal. Cairney was in the first team and had just scored his first Premier League goal but was, because of this unscrupulous individual, unable to negotiate directly to the club under FA rules.

Adam Pearson, unsurprisingly miffed by this, refused the demands and went public to embarrass the advisor, who was ultimately trying to benefit himself, into backing down, and Cairney was dropped from the team, missing the chance to play against Arsenal and impress a wider audience.

Cairney can be absolved of personal responsibility here. It's fair to suppose that he didn't necessarily try to use this unlicensed advisor to try to make the pips of the club squeak, but just because he was naive. There had evidently been some clearing of the air last week as he was on the bench at Portsmouth, although he didn't get on the pitch.

It's a shame that it ever happened, even if the outcome is now satisfactory for all concerned. Cairney, after all, has lost his place in the side, a place that this blog and many other sources were claiming he deserved long before Phil Brown finally gave him his Premier League bow. Under the new manager, he will have to work doubly hard to get it back and prove he is worth the money he is currently on, never mind the money someone with their own agenda tried to claim he should be on.

Cairney is contracted now until 2013. If he maintains the progress he has been making at a similar rate, those bigger wages will eventually be his anyway. It's up to him, not any wideboy third party, and it has to remain only up to him. Meanwhile, it's fantastic news for the club that Cairney has joined Liam Cooper in signing up. Given our utter failure to bring good enough players through the ranks and make them into proper first team performer over the last decade and more, it's about time. Short term issues remain questionable but, in the long term, the future is bright.

It's all work work work

2010-03-24T11:13:00.006Z

Fulham are the visitors to the KC Stadium this weekend, and the main hope that the Tiger Nation will harbour towards gaining a crucial three points is that our opponents will be completely shattered.

Their squad isn't big and they have made laudable progress in both the Europa League and the FA Cup this season while also maintaining the status quo within the Premier League. But they have a daunting FA Cup replay - ie, a preventable game - against Tottenham Hotspur tonight, and the point may just be round the corner where the fatigue finally hits.

This means that Iain Dowie's team changes - and there has to be some - need to emphasise the contribution of workhorses in the squad. The likes of Dean Marney, who is already back in the side, plus Seyi Olofinjana, Jozy Altidore and even Geovanni, who had become much more of a team player this season than he ever could have been last, need to be involved.

All players should work hard, of course, and sheer graft means nothing if you have little inkling of the correct way to kick the ball, but if playing against an overachieving team based on togetherness rather than size, then you have to try to peck them into submission. Give them no time on the ball, no space to play about, no moments of recuperation.

City beat Fulham on the opening day of last season to create club history. This weekend they need to repeat that feat to try to maintain some club history. As good as Fulham are, they are showing that fortunes in glitzy European competitions can be detrimental to the weekly bread and butter stuff. City have no such excuse, and every such reason to prove it.

Folan victim

2010-03-22T13:00:00.007Z

So, just how ungrateful is the supporter who dares criticise Caleb Folan even after the striker bagged two goals at Portsmouth on Saturday?

Well, perhaps a little. And some supporters criticise without reason. Method to go with the madness does not exist in their world. Folan is who he is and that remains enough.

Yet the laconic centre forward deserves it. His two-goal salvo is rendered less laudable by City's inability to then see out the game safely (not that Folan is to blame for that) and also for the great number of things Folan simply didn't do correctly set against the two things he did get right.

There is a broken record at work here, but Folan simply will never be a good enough centre forward at Premier League level until he can fathom how to stay onside. Six months in the wilderness has done him no good, and maybe it was thinking way beyond the wishful that Phil Brown had told him when he returned from his loan at Middlesbrough to put his feet up and watch endless DVDs that spoonfeed the workings of the offside trap to players who simply cannot decipher what it is.

Someone somewhere will have kept count of the occasions when Folan was caught beyond the last defender. It occurred two, three, maybe four times too many and a better striker would have seen the majority of Folan's peccadilloes as preventable. There was one occasion when Richard Garcia waited and waited and waited on a counter attack for Folan to get into position, and still the flag went up when the Aussie could bear the suspense no longer and released the ball. It helps Folan in no way at all that he habitually berates the deliverer of the ball each time he is caught by the linesman, even though only Folan himself is to blame.

Folan hadn't changed much at Portsmouth, despite the goals. He is still a preener on the pitch. He still doesn't run anywhere near as much as he could. His touch is good but his awareness of what is around him and general football sense is poor.

And yes, he scored twice. The generous would say this means he deserves a break from the criticism. Well, the first goal he knew barely a thing about, while the second was as much down to a defensive stumble as anything else, though he did finish it well. He didn't help himself, however, with a strange, egotistical celebration which was easily forgotten during the Tiger Nation's own capering of glee but then instantly recalled when the final whistle sounded on the 3-2 defeat.

The worst thing of all is that Iain Dowie, a confirmed Folan fan, will now argue with some justification that Folan deserves to keep his place in the team, even though he only received his fast-track to the starting XI when two other strikers succumbed to injury the day before. Folan may have a history of scoring against Fulham at the KC Stadium, but even so there is little to feel but horror at the prospect of City trying to stay up while relying on Folan to lead the line. Those two goals are nought but a smokescreen, and if that makes us ungrateful, so be it.

30: Portsmouth 3 - 2 Hull City - 20/03/2010

2010-03-20T21:53:00.015Z

This one hurt like no other. To be a goal up with two minutes of normal time on the watch and still lose the game tells you everything you need to know about the heart, stomach and attitude of the Hull City first team squad.

Iain Dowie has so much work to do. His reputation suggests he is a noted disciplinarian; it is evident that this trait is one he is going to need to exercise on his inheritance substantially over the coming days and weeks. The players were disjointed, unmotivated and, with a notable exception or two, uncaring. And still they contrived to get within breathing distance of a first away win for more than a year.

Dowie picked Paul McShane to fill the Kamil Zayatte-sized gap in defence, and put Kevin Kilbane in midfield for the suspended George Boateng. Andy Dawson wore the captain's armband, while the bizarre sight of Caleb Folan back in the side took some getting used to.

Caleb Folan!

The laconic, preening, non-scoring centre forward who would be a half-decent player if he ever managed to master the offside laws. Only half-decent, mind. A facility to time his runs would only make up a fraction of the shortcomings he has as far as being a Premier League performer is concerned. And yet there he is, in the front line.

A new manager always has new ideas and it isn't unusual for a player frozen out under the previous regime to suddenly receive a lifeline from the following one. Ibrahima Sonko was the one we wondered about, especially given the defensive shortage and inexperience in the squad. Sonko, for which we can be grateful, was nowhere near Dowie's thinking, in the end. But Folan? It never occurred for a moment to anyone that he might be involved. He hadn't been seen for weeks, since returning from his spectacularly uneventful loan at Middlesbrough with an injury. But in hindsight, it made sense. Well, it did to Dowie, anyway. He had tried to sign him when he was manager at QPR. We, correctly at the time, said no.

So, with Folan playing alongside Jan Vennegoor of Hesselink up top, hopes weren't high. A double-edged consolation came through that Jozy Altidore was injured, so at least the skilled American hadn't been dropped for the lumbering Folan on a quality issue. And those hopes weren't exactly reaching for the clouds even before the Folan bombshell dropped. But City took to the field with the support of a whopping 1,100 travelling fans and began the brighter in a turgid game.

Vennegoor of Hesselink aimed a strong header just wide from a Kilbane cross as City created the first chance, but Portsmouth then settled in, with nothing to lose, and Marc Wilson put a free kick inches adrift of Boaz Myhill's post and then Quincy Owusu-Abeyie hit a shot straight at McShane. Steven Mouyokolo then similarly got in the road of Tommy Smith's after a rapid Portsmouth counter attack.

City regrouped a touch and Jimmy Bullard twice aimed curlers wide, the second of which took a slight deflection. From the consequent corner, the ball was cleared to Craig Fagan and his low goalbound volley was touched in, more by accident than design, by Folan.

So Folan had scored. Via a fluke, and without remotely justifying his sudden rebirth as a bonafide Hull City performer at this level, but he had scored. And City were winning. Away from home. It was a feeling seldom experienced and one the Tiger Nation was happy to exploit.

It didn't last long though. David James was booked for handball outside his area - a momentum handball via the slippery pitch, as opposed to a calculated act of cheating - and then Portsmouth charged upfield. Jamie O'Hara crossed for Smith whose chance was barricaded away by McShane, but defending of the corner was lame, to say the least, as no flick or clearance was offered and allowed Smith to pounce on the ball inside the six yard box and poke in.

City made one more chance before the break, with Bullard and Vennegoor of Hesselink showing tidy touches to give Dean Marney shooting room, and the drive was only a foot or so wide. The second half started in this manner, with Fagan battering a shot from distance just over and Vennegoor of Hesselink stretching, stretching, stretching that long frame of his but still not able to get on the end of Kilbane's driven cross.

McShane got in the way of a Smith shot on the counter attack before Dowie bit the bullet and slung a substitute on. The wrong sub for the wrong player, it seemed, as Nick Barmby's brand of low gravity immobilty was preferred to Vennegoor of Hesselink's brand of high gravity immobility. The Dutchman should have stayed on, or at the very least been replaced by Geovanni. Everyone was expecting Folan, by now reverting to type by being offside a lot and then blaming team-mates for it, to be the player hauled away. But he stayed on. And then he scored. Properly this time, too.

Richard Garcia had also been introduced for the injured Dawson - Kilbane dropped back as part of the shuffle - and the Australian exchanged a gorgeous sequence of balls with Bullard to feed Folan who got a break from a defensive stumble and steered a scruffy but well-angled shot beyond the advancing James to give the Tigers the lead with 17 minutes left.

Gulp. A win away from home was now really possible. City didn't try to increase the lead, but crucially also didn't try to nullify the inevitable Portsmouth backlash. It was luck and Portsmouth's own inadequacies that maintained the situation until Bullard gave away a free kick on the edge of the box - and we did this a lot, which Dowie bemoaned correctly - and O'Hara, a sublime footballer, curled an immaculate, scrummy shot around the wall and beyond a well beaten Myhill.

Instantly, City fell to bits. From the restart, Garcia received the ball deep on his own flank and tried to find Mouyokolo inside him but lost possession to a rampaging Nadir Belhadj, who galloped to the line and pulled the ball back for sub Kanu to finish with ease.

We would say it was unbelievable, but the heart-wrenching truth of the matter is that it was entirely believable. Not for Portsmouth to win 3-2 from 2-1 down in the 88th minute, but for City to lose 3-2 from 2-1 up in the 88th minute. Oh, that's quite believable.

Five minutes were added and City had nothing left. None of us did.

Given that we don't have any away form at all, it perhaps shouldn't be a surprise that we lost, and even that we lost from a gilt-edged winning position. There are home games ahead against Fulham, Burnley and Sunderland that could be the true shaper of our fate, but now we have to win them and make up five points on teams above us in doing so. A tall order indeed. And with the current lax attitude within the squad, not one anybody can feel confidence about.

Dowie will have learnt much about his squad after this game. Hopefully part of it is deciding exactly which of them are actually bothered at all about keepin our club afloat. By the time Fulham come to the KC next week, we'll know much more about what he knows.

Portsmouth: James, Rocha (Basinas 84), Hreidarsson, Belhadj, Mokoena (Kanu 57), O'Hara, Mullins, Owusu-Abeyie (Webber 82), Wilson, Piquionne, Smith. Subs not used: Ashdown, Finnan, Diop, Brown.
Hull City: Myhill, Mendy, Dawson (Garcia 70), Mouyokolo, McShane, Marney, Bullard, Kilbane, Fagan, Folan, Vennegoor of Hesselink (Barmby 66). Subs not used: Duke, Cooper, Olofinjana, Cairney, Geovanni.

Super Cooper

2010-03-19T10:34:00.008Z

In a pivotal week for Hull City, a piece of positive news is that Liam Cooper has signed a new three-year contract with the club. For Cooper himself, an eventful week could end even more positively with a place in Iain Dowie's first starting line up.

Cooper is a teenager and all members of the Tiger Nation should remember that. But there is also no doubt that he fits that adage of an old head on young shoulders. Anyone who witnessed his performance in the last 40 minutes of the game against Arsenal last weekend - and this includes a paying television audience, as well as those present - will have seen a fearless, uncompromising young defender at work.

Of course, as Arsenal took the points and the headlines, and will have been the focus of attention during the game, Cooper's escapades will have been largely secondary to some of the other achievements on the pitch. Arsenal winning in the last minute is a story; Arsenal not winning in the last minute is also a story. For the Tiger Nation gutted by the 93rd minute winner, a small but absolute consolation was Cooper's display.

On as a 55th minute substitute for the injured Kamil Zayatte, Cooper proceeded to throw himself into every challenge as if his young career depended on it. He won balls cleanly, shepherded Arsenal runs away effectively, headed away higher crosses dominantly and then, showcasing probably the hardest part of the defensive art, read the game deliciously. The way he anticipated a Theo Walcott run before Walcott himself and duly nicked the slide rule ball off the England winger's toes was defensive perfection on a par with Andy Dawson's tackle on the same player a season before.

Cooper's inexperience is the one thing that Dowie will consider as a negative prior to picking his defence for Portsmouth tomorrow. It is a fair point, as with Zayatte joining Anthony Gardner on the injured list, our first choice central defensive pairing seems, at face value, to be 20 year old Steven Mouyokolo and 18 year old Cooper. There would be no complaint at beefing up the gravitas in that defence should Dowie choose to do so, though Kevin Kilbane is the only viable option as surely Ibrahima Sonko remains unplayable, even through a new gaffer's eyes.

Mouyokolo is a shoo-in and, in all honesty, Cooper has every right to claim to be likewise. Yet whether he plays or not, a performance like the one against Arsenal and a new three-year deal straight afterwards makes it a good week for the player all round. It would end very nicely for him if Dowie, having watched the game against Arsenal, puts an arm on his shoulder and tells him he's in the team. The attitude he showed against the Gunners is precisely the sort Dowie needs from the players as a whole if we're going to escape the drop.

Our new leader

2010-03-17T12:18:00.008Z

So, it's Iain Dowie. An underwhelming appointment to most, but then again despite Premier League status, we're still Hull City and the biggest out-of-work names (ie, Mark Hughes and Alan Curbishley) will not be interested in us.

It's hard to accept that sometimes, but it really is that simple.

As for Dowie himself, he is immediately being knocked by less cerebral elements within the Tiger Nation, but more for what he isn't, rather than what he is. A closer look at his managerial record suggests it is a fair one. His life in the top tier isn't fantastic, but he is a thinker and a learner who surely will take the harsh lessons of seeing Crystal Palace narrowly relegated under his stewardship and use them to the Tigers' benefit.

Dowie has everything going for him over the next nine matches, which is all he has signed up for thus far. More than that, he has everything going for him as far as this Saturday's trip to Portsmouth is concerned. The players, not all of whom were enamoured with Phil Brown, will enjoy the new direction and fresh faces on the training ground and Portsmouth themselves have had their relegation sealed via the nine-point deduction on the same day as Dowie's arrival. Therefore, he could be preparing a buoyant team to take on one with a sense of wonder at what the point of it all is. It's all about the timing.

It's very sad to see Brian Horton, twice over a Tigers icon now, leave the club as part of Dowie's arrival but, like Brown, he will be regarded as a legend of Hull City for as long as the club is with us. Yet the club is that which matters most, and so Dowie is our man. He deserves everyone's support.

Ten of the best

2010-03-16T13:57:00.014Z

These are the ten best players signed by Phil Brown during his three and a half years at the helm of Hull City. They are in order of impact and success, not necessarily on out-and-out ability...

1 - Dean Windass
It says a lot when Brown's most successful signing was one who earned Premier League status for the club rather than one who contributed to it in any tangible way once it had been achieved. Already with goodwill on his side from being the best footballer in Tigers colours through the bleak 1990s, Windass returned in January 2007, scored the requisite goals to keep City in the Championship, and then carried on his stirring form up to and including his immortal volley at Wembley. His lack of class off the pitch and ability on it once in the top flight does little to nullify his effect. Brown's decision to sign him was shrewd; his decision to jettison him once the Wembley champagne had flattened was shrewder.

2 - Fraizer Campbell
It would be easy to declare Campbell ineligible for such a rundown, given that he was never actually ours. But his acquisition on loan from Manchester United proved to be the final, key component of Brown's team for the top, and we had never seen a player who could combine sheer pace and elegant touch with such prowess in front of goal. Oddly, like Windass, perhaps Campbell suffered for promotion as he went back to Old Trafford with his reputation enhanced, then went on loan to Tottenham Hotspur, and finally joined Sunderland, and had patently failed to have any effect as a Premier League player at any. City's almost obsequious efforts to court him - twice, without luck - may have turned out right for the Tigers after all, and Campbell's own part in keeping the Tigers guessing while waiting for a "bigger name" to snap him up tarnishes his rating with the fans considerably. But he was still a cracking player to have.

3 - Geovanni
As much of an individual as impishly brilliant Brazilians tend to be, Geovanni was a stunning bit of business by Brown as the squad was reshaped for the Premier League adventure. His touch and vision are exemplary but it is his capacity for the unexpected that has elevated him to heroic status within the Tiger Nation, and his goal at Arsenal will, quite simply, never be bettered when combining technical skill with a sense of the occasion. Injury troubles and a worthy attempt to prove more of a team player have calmed down his flamboyance of late, which has been as handy as it has been harmful, and there is hopefully a good deal more from him to come.

4 - Stephen Hunt
Only three quarters of a season at the club and Hunt has already established himself as a first-rate performer. His skill down the left flank is further enhanced by an amusing and very watchable lack of respect for any opponent at all, and his capacity to irritate adversaries has earned him one of those "love to hate" statuses with other sets of fans, aside from the Tiger Nation that exclusively loves him and the Chelsea contingent that solely hates him. He is also very good in front of goal, which has proved particularly useful this season. Easily Brown's best bit of business last summer.

5 - Wayne Brown
The manager, thinking about a plan for promotion, targeted and got an unrelated namesake at Colchester United as the right man to become the experienced, fearless leader at the back that City needed. He was an outstanding, unfussy defender and that we didn't need him once promotion was established a year later was neither here nor there, and the player himself would probably agree. He did the job he was brought in for, did it superbly, picked up his medal and left.

6 - Marlon King
A thousand reservations exist about including the discredited King, but his three months on loan at the start of the Premier League adventure gave us a striker who could both hold the ball up brilliantly and get into goalscoring positions. We didn't have that again for more than a year.

7 - Richard Garcia
A bit-part player of late, though his natural ability on the right flank maintains plenty of supporters, but it's worth remembering just how good Garcia sometimes looked during the promotion season. Able to beat full backs with brains rather than pace, he crossed the ball with accuracy and proved to be an able finisher too, both from close range and distance. His current status as a selfless team player offers numerous clues as to why he has become a notable survivor in recent harder times.

8 - Jimmy Bullard
Too obvious as far as the most gifted player signed by Brown is concerned, and would be so much higher if, clearly, he'd ever been fit for a reasonable period. The half a dozen games he played in the autumn after finally shaking off his knee trouble were some of the most inspiring performances recallable by the Tiger Nation in many years. Now that he's fit again, he could easily be pushing Windass on the list if he continues in his current manner and City stay up.

9 - Kamil Zayatte
As mad as a window when the mood takes, but in the Guinean defender, Brown signed a player who could play football as well as defend like a trojan. He settled in at the end of August 2008 as if he had been around for years, and only the odd injury lay-off has seen his progress falter, despite the odd daft agent-placed rumour of his supposed desire to move on. A brilliant tackler, willing worker and handy going up for set-pieces, the occasional defensive howler has been all that has blotted Zayatte's copybook, and his absence through his new injury will be harshly felt.

10 - Caleb Folan
Scrapes in despite the historic £1 million fee, as since promotion he has contributed almost entirely nothing to the cause except complaining, posing and being caught offside. There remains doubt about whether he was ever worth the money as it took him until December 2008 - four months after joining - before he scored his first goal (albeit the fractured skull on his debut didn't help) but later there were crucial strikes against Stoke, Coventry, Leicester, Colchester and especially a fine winner at West Bromwich Albion which contributed greatly to the promotion effort, and it was his goal that saw off Watford for good in the play-off semi-finals. A good signing for his sense of occasion rather than anything else, as proved by his winning goal against Fulham in City's first ever Premier League match. In the 19 months since that day, he hasn't scored again and remains on the books as an inadequate but harmless bit of nostalgia for the club's rise to the top.

Thank you Phil

2010-03-15T18:56:00.024Z

I never care in the slightest what supporters of any other clubs think of Phil Brown. And today, the day his dismissal from duty prompts the worse of prejudiced, witless, anonymous opinions from the kind of moron whose football comes purely from armchair and tabloid, I care even less, should that be possible.

The man fulfilled the dreams of a footballing city, one that had suffered generations of underachievement on the pitch and idiots, crooks and incompetents dragging the club down off it. Worthy managers - not to mention a fair measure of deeply unworthy ones - could not get the Tigers into the top flight.

But Brown did. And that is a legacy that will maintain him as a club legend for as long as Hull City is in existence. He is a manager without equal when one examines the rollcall of gaffers that have held the post. Eternal gratitude will always be offered to Cliff Britton, Terry Neill, Colin Appleton, Brian Horton, Warren Joyce Brian Little and Peter Taylor. But none of these are revered. Brown is and always will be.

It's one of the detrimental effects of the internet that you have to read through a swathe of inarticulate, uninformed dross while searching for the good stuff. And yes, I understand the irony of that statement while running a blog that many will find both inarticulate or uninformed. But when Brown's sacking was announced this morning, the reaction of most football supporters I found online was dismally predictable.

The usual stuff was churned out about team talks on the pitch, skin pigment, earpieces, singing on the pitch, the recent kerfuffle in front of Hull's order of the fragrant Women's Institute. Guff, the lot of it. Only the kindlier souls recalled that Brown's three and a half years at the helm consisted of cheating relegation, earning promotion to the top tier for the first time via a debut day at Wembley and then, albeit scruffily, surviving that first Premier League season.

I don't care about his liking for ultraviolet rays or sartorial flaws. It matters not a jot whether he ruined Sloop John B. Just look at those achievements, for heaven's sake.

The incredulity of the occasion at Wembley can be heard now in John Murray's exceptional commentary on BBC Radio 5 Live on that momentous summer day in 2008. He only said "Hull City are in the Premier League", but did so in a tone that wouldn't have been out of place had a girls' under 11 team made the Premier League. The Tigers only had history via meagre longevity, not by achievement. That is, until Brown came along.

The Premier League is a different beast, and there is much to be said, with a touch of hindsight, for the argument that the Tigers wouldn't have made such a compelling, nose-tweaking start to life as a member of the elite had the clubs they overcame been even remotely able to take these upstarts seriously. Arsène Wenger acknowledged a lack of commitment from his team after a daring 4-3-3 formation beat the mighty Gunners 2-1 at the Emirates and shot Brown and his team to worldwide fame and intrigue. It was and remains the most sporting thing Wenger ever said about us, and much has occurred since that win to give him the ammunition too.

Nonetheless, neither Brown nor City could be held responsible for the failings of bigger clubs with eyes off the ball, and so he became the Manager of the Month for September 2008. He was being asked to appear on television, he gave big interviews to broadsheet newspapers, he revelled in the spotlight.

Naturally, the British attitude is to raise someone's standing and then do as much as possible to knock them from it, and Brown's alfresco lecture to the players at Manchester City on Boxing Day 2008 was the moment they had been waiting for. It's a subject matter that has never quite been left alone and, in the usual press manner, only the facts that suit them - City lost 5-1, didn't win again for all bar one of the remaining games - were the ones that were regurgitated again and again as Brown's presence and ego became actively offensive for some people. This blog is duty bound to point out (again) that City were 4-0 down (and therefore drew the second half 1-1) and had lost to Sunderland heavily at home the week before, thereby prompting any rot to set in a lot earlier than Brown's detractors would prefer the public to believe. Enough senior pros have since said, frequently, that their attitude to the manager did not change at all as a consequence of the public admonition and, of course, Jimmy Bullard and co re-enacted it in celebration this season as if to draw a very thick, indelible line through the whole sorry affair. Brown shouldn't have done it, but only for his own sake.

The paucity of wins that followed, carrying over to this season, was enough to make the more pragmatic wing of the Tiger Nation declare that only the special circumstances of Brown's achievements in getting such a backgroundless club into the Premier League was stopping him from being ushered out of work. That was partially true; what was truer was that Brown was untouchable thanks to the blind faith he was receiving from Paul Duffen, a starstruck chairman whose ultra-close friendship with his manager suggested a worrying myopia as to the best future for the club. Duffen's eventual demise in November, notionally self-inflicted but later established as anything but, robbed Brown of a huge ally and forced him, with the return of a focussed and supporter-revered chairman in Adam Pearson, to rethink his methods. Brown's image improved, largely through his non-appearance in the national media beyond the requirements immediately before and after games, and things got better. Yet Pearson's trigger fingers have evidently itched from the moment he returned. He could have sacked Brown when he first arrived; he didn't do so. Each of the next handful of games felt like the last call for Brown but he won against Stoke City, against West Ham United and against Everton. Those three wins, plus a draw at Manchester City, gave him enough of a mandate to, we believed, see out the season.

So, where did it finally go wrong enough for Pearson to act? After all, but for an injury time goalkeeping error that Brown could not prevent nor prepare for, the Tigers would have earned a totally unexpected point against Arsenal. Even the defeat, due to its gallantry, means that the timing still looks odd. Nine games remain but the run-in is not spectacularly difficult compared to some. The only remaining "big four" team looming is Liverpool, and as the last-day fixture that game could well end up a dead rubber anyway. Aston Villa are still due a visit too, although we don't know when, but otherwise home matches against Fulham, Burnley and Sunderland each represent real possibilities for points, and (even allowing for a big fat zero in the away wins column) trips to Portsmouth and Wigan Athletic (less so Stoke City and Birmingham City) offer further hope for at least a share of the spoils. Brown, using the mindset of the team that frustrated Arsenal, could have led his side to those points. That he isn't going to be allowed to do so asks more questions about what Pearson's real motives are.

Brown's reputation is only tarnished superficially by those who believe that it is a crime against football to question the integrity and dress sense of the Arsenal captain, or claim that the notorious team talk was akin to a public guillotining of delicate footballers. It's a results business, and Brown wasn't getting many results but the tightness of the bottom of the Premier League meant he was still capable of becoming a hero for another year in keeping the team up. And, irrespective of whether he managed it or not, his legacy as a manager and his attractiveness to similarly sized clubs is secure.

So maybe it is an off-field issue. And this is where Duffen's unpalatable head is raised again. He resigned publicly but was sacked privately by club owner Russell Bartlett back in the autumn, and was later taken to court by Pearson over club monies that had either gone missing or been misused. Duffen's agreement to an out-of-court settlement established a level of culpability but an FA inquiry remains on the horizon. It is by no means improbable, though one deeply hopes it is a red herring, that Pearson has found evidence of wrongdoing by his manager and has got his retaliation in first prior to the FA's findings and prospective punishment. Every pair of fingers should be crossed that Brown did go for purely footballing reasons. Anything else and that reputation that the Tiger Nation have worked so hard to preserve on his behalf could die right there.

Horton is leading training but Pearson had made it clear that the new manager will be in charge by Thursday morning and will select the team for the game at Portsmouth. The identity of that manager is for another blog posting, although for what it's worth I'd rather keep Horton in charge than give Gary Megson licence to inflict his desperately negative brand of football - and his appalling habit of bawling at his players throughout a match - on City. Still, if it's just about nine matches and no more...

The last thought is to offer Brown great thanks, sincere good wishes and all the luck in the world for getting the inevitable new job. Whoever does appoint him shouldn't worry about his foibles and notice the fine football manager that he is, the one that made this infernally crisis-ridden club's most vivid dreams a wonderful reality. It's a sad day for the Tigers, and for Brown, but the starry era that today's decision brings to an end will be cast as his, all his, only his and forever his.

I hope, as he dared sing to us upon securing Premier League safety ten months ago, that it really is the best trip he's ever been on. It's certainly been ours.

29: Hull City 1 - 2 Arsenal - 13/03/2010

2010-03-14T13:12:00.023Z

The ball must have had a vicious swerve or taken a deflection not visible to the naked eyes within the KC Stadium. There must be a reason why Boaz Myhill chose to parry back into the danger zone a less than credible shot that gifted Arsenal an injury time victory they didn't deserve.

He might have been able to catch it. He certainly should have been able to push it sideways, away from obvious and immediate peril. That he chose to just push the ball from Denilson's effort back ahead of him, allowing Nicklas Bendtner a tap-in that released the Gunners from their jail sentence, was as sickening a blow as Hull City could have suffered.

This was as superhuman an effort as any recallable struggle in recent Tigers history. Only the fact that it ended in defeat prevents it from being the greatest ever. City were at 1-1 and had been a man down for the entire second half. The ten remaining players had battled and grappled and fought as Arsenal's cultural machine took a slow but evident stranglehold on the game. Right until the six minutes of added time were announced, there seemed a sense of inevitability that Arsenal would score. And yet that inevitability seemed to pass when the injury time began. So obviously, they put one away.

It could have been such a crucial point. At the most now, we can hope that this astonishing team performance can be replicated in the next three home games as they are winnable encounters against Fulham, Burnley and Sunderland. It fulfils the arcane City fan's adage of typical City that they quite possibly won't, and the Arsenal heroics will be seen as a rise to the big occasion rather than an example of what is required from all remaining games to stay in the Premier League. Teams that can play this well against such a pedigree side shouldn't be relegated. It remains a stark fact, however, that City could still be, and easily so.

Phil Brown rung the changes and located his guts and brains by reverting to 4-4-2, despite fears over Jimmy Bullard's capacity to operate in such a system just yet. The surprises were still there, with Dean Marney's return from the cold - and a calf injury which few have believed was ever thus - to midfield alongside Bullard and George Boateng, with Tom Cairney missing out. One assumes that the talented youngster's absence from the bench meant he wasn't dropped, but unavailable.

Craig Fagan, with a sense of dread, was also back after his ban and the authentic duo of Jozy Altidore and Jan Vennegoor of Hesselink were back up front as they should always be. Andy Dawson was restored to left back after illness and Bernard Mendy was given licence to be dreadful and dreamy in equal measure at right back.

The Tigers started nervously and Arsenal enjoyed sumptuous possession but little damage was done. Altidore was soon ejoying the challenge of facing the experienced but slowing Sol Campbell, and the first battle between the two saw the American shake off and turn the ex-England defender but then scuff his shot wide.

Arsenal can, of course, pass and create at will, with deft touches and a sturdy work ethic to go with a brand of football that just looks like nature at work. When on the receiving end of this it is hard to appreciate but it is quite extraordinary when one's emotions are cleared. The Tigers worked and harassed in the way that lowlier teams have to in such circumstances, but eventually the ballwork was always going to win.

The opening goal came when Emmanuel Eboué and Bacary Sagna swapped passes on the right to give Bendtner room to edge across the area and find Andrey Arshavin. The impish Russian casually nipped between two City defenders to find Myhill in front of him and he happily steered his shot home.

Scripts state that Arsenal will then take control, pass and move to their heart's content and take their opponents entirely for granted. This didn't quite happen. Tellingly, for now and the rest of the season, no heads dropped and City maintained their restricted but visible defiance, and got back into the match.

The equaliser was deserved; it could have brought more City's way than just a goal. Bullard's low ball to the edge of the area was flicked sideways by Marney and Vennegoor of Hesselink had a yard on Campbell, possibly an offside yard at that. The Dutchman crashed to the ground, the penalty was given and Campbell saw yellow. Vennegoor of Hesselink was in a position to focus on goal, thereby it was a clear goalscoring opportunity and so the absence of a red card was a talking point. It didn't take much attention initially however as Bullard had a penalty to take. He thumped it beyond Manuel Almunia's right hand and parity was restored.

The game began to get tasty afterwards. Fagan was being a pest, but in a refreshingly controlled way. Boateng was chasing everything, Altidore was utterly possessed in his desire to show Brown that dropping him in recent weeks was the act of a lamebrain. Arsenal still created but were in a match, and being given a lesson in the other brand of football - the one that claims that hard work and desire to suppress is as worthwhile as pretty passing and vision.

Abou Diaby climed highest to head a Denilson free kick wide, then Sagna overlapped as City appealed for a ball in touch and crossed for Bendtner who was followed by Eboué in being unable due to amber-shirted aggressors, to get a shot in. Arshavin got the last go and sliced it over.

Fagan was fouled on the right and a free kick was awarded, but then Bendtner and Boateng had an altercation that seemed little more than daft handbag stuff, but each were given yellow. This would be significant later.

Arshavin swiped another shot wide and high after being teed up by Eboué who had nutmegged Bullard in making the chance. It was a terrific spectacle and the second half was set to be a pearler. Then just as two added minutes were announced, Boateng went in high on Sagna as each chased a bouncing ball and got his second booking. Unlike at Blackburn Rovers, there will be no grounds for appeal here. He was careless and had to go, and the immediate thought was to get into the dressing room level and wonder how on earth the Tigers were going to deal with being down to ten against this terrific football team.

A half time change in personnel was expected, bearing in mind the presence of spoilers like Kevin Kilbane and Seyi Olofinjana who could do Boateng's admirable job. None was made, interestingly. City were going to restart the game a man light, with two strikers still on the pitch, a midfielder returning to fitness and another severely lacking match practice. Altidore went wider a little more but it seemed to be the only concession. Marney, catcalled at times by the unforgiving Tiger Nation but never hiding as a consequence, shook off the paucity of his own recent involvement in the squad to put in one of his shifts of immense work. It just began to look hopeful, though only just.

Vennegoor of Hesselink headed a Marney cross wide and then Altidore made a fabulous flowing run but chose to release a clearly offside Vennegoor of Hesselink instead of continuing his run and maybe having a dig. City won it back through Kamil Zayatte from Arsenal's clearing free kick and he decided one of his rampaging dashes was in order, but Campbell brought it to an end with a crunching tackle which was fair but extremely hard. Zayatte was stricken, helped from the field, helped back on and then finally collapsed to the extent that he needed a stretcher. Liam Cooper was introduced.

So let's re-assess the situation. City were playing Arsenal with ten men and two 20 year old centre backs who had never before been in partnership. Not exactly a scenario to presume a point was possible. Yet Cooper, along with the excellent Steven Mouyokolo, was immaculate. Beautiful, at times. His reading of the game and ability to be where he needed to be to head or hack away the ball was the action of a special young defender.

City carried on. Altidore broke away from Campbell again and fed Bullard square, and the mercurial midfielder had room to shoot as Arsenal backed away, but aimed the shot a yard too high. Arsenal threw on Theo Walcott, giving Dawson the chance to replicate the exceptional display of the Emirates last season that no member of the Tiger Nation will forget. Walcott was influential and quick and delivered ample dangerous balls but the finishing was wayward from the Gunners, with Arshavin especially profligate.

Bendtner hooked a half chance over before Brown withdrew the flagging Vennegoor of Hesselink and introduced Richard Garcia as City began to adopt pragmatism as a point became a clear possibility. Mendy hurriedly got rid of a Walcott cross from his own six yard box and managed to clear the whole stadium in doing so, before Cooper made a magnificent block at close range from Bendtner who had the goal at his mercy from another Walcott centre.

Walcott tried again, scuffing a shot woefully wide as the squeeze on City's rearguard tightened more. Cooper then got across Walcott before the ball was even played into the England player's run, and took it away from him with a stunning bit of reading of the game. It was impeccable.

Kilbane came on for Altidore as City essentially went 4-5-0. Six minutes were signalled to account for Zayatte's fall and Myhill held a Gael Clichy shot before his heartbreaking flap, maybe with wind assistance or partial vision, or both, put Denilson's shot into Bendtner's gleeful path.

It's as disheartening a defeat as one can remember, following one of the most stirring performances that makes one forgive the bleakness of City's recent showings in the Premier League. That it came so near to a big point and yet ended up so far away could prove crucial in the long term as well as soul-destroying in the short term. City are three points adrift of safety now, simple as. And displays like this against a colossus of the game are unlikely to be repeated against the beatable sides we have still to play - Portsmouth, Burnley, Sunderland, Wigan Athletic. That's the tragic thing.

Hull City: Myhill, Mendy, Dawson, Zayatte (Cooper 55), Mouyokolo, Boateng, Marney, Bullard, Fagan, Altidore (Kilbane 82), Vennegoor of Hesselink (Garcia 73). Subs not used: Duke, Olofinjana, Barmby, Zaki.
Arsenal: Almunia, Sagna, Clichy, Vermaelen, Campbell, Denilson, Diaby, Eboué (Walcott 65), Nasri (Eduardo 76), Arshavin, Bendtner. Subs not used: Fabianski, Silvestre, Traore, Eastmond, Merida.

Once more for the one up front

2010-03-12T10:56:00.008Z

If there is a reason to field a 4-5-1 formation against Arsenal tomorrow, it is to keep Jimmy Bullard involved.

The super-skilled midfielder is still returning to fitness after his extraordinary injury problems and needs help and protection in the centre of the park that a 4-4-2, the preferred method of everyone, will not entirely provide.

And, as it's a hiding to nothing game, the Tigers might be able to get away with it. Few people - okay, let's make that nobody at all - would predict that City would get anything against a talented and resurgent Gunners outfit irrespective of formation. So maybe a 4-5-1 might be seen as a damage limitation exercise.

It may limit the damage to Bullard's fitness, but given that a 4-5-1 still got blasted substantially out of Everton's water last week, and further so at West Ham United a fortnight before, would it necessarily limit the damage to the scoreline and the goal difference?

It's a proper quandary.

Certainly one thing that Phil Brown can do to aid the lone striker while also giving Bullard enough assistance is pick natural wide players who can attack and who can really run. This means Bernard Mendy or Kamel Ghilas on the right. However, the doubt remains over the fitness of Stephen Hunt for the other flank, and that leaves few natural choices for the manager. Richard Garcia has the appetite but isn't left-sided; Nick Barmby has the hunger but, again, is not left-sided. It's a tough one, and exposes just how valuable Hunt is when he isn't playing.

Another thing is to pick the right front man. Someone who is mobile, fit, able to control the ball, able to run along the line, selfless and in touch with his team-mates. This narrows it down to just one player - Jozy Altidore.

The 4-5-1 might work, depending on what the most is you can expect from it when Arsenal are the team in town. But the only way Brown will appease the supporters after recent horror shows is to get the right players for this otherwise wretched, negative formation. And hope and pray Bullard can be active in a 4-4-2 by the time we head down to Portsmouth next week.

Amr can't

2010-03-11T09:57:00.017Z

In very simple terms, Amr Zaki has, thus far, been a disaster.

This specifically applies to the games he has started for Hull City. There have been only two of them, but he should not have been on the pitch for either.

The Egyptian is evidently a skilful and gifted footballer. There is evidence of this on film and we have seen glimpses - meagre glimpses, but glimpses nonetheless - of these attributes when he has taken to the field as a substitute for the Tigers.

But he did not earn his starting place at either West Ham United or Everton and still hasn't earned one as the shape of the side for this weekend's visit of Arsenal to the KC hovers into sight.

Zaki clearly isn't fit yet. To give a semi-fit striker a lone role up front and expect him to scamper around like Craig Fagan, using the wings and irritating defenders, strikes of real stupidity.

He also seems to have a powerful cheating chromosome in his system which he cannot shake off. This needs sorting urgently. Not just because his wild plunges to the deck make him look foolish, but also because he sometimes does it in situations where he may actually be in a good enough position, on the ball, to benefit from staying on his feet. Football fans aren't happy even with people who cheat to their own team's advantage. They're even less happy when that player happens to be rubbish at it.

The biggest problem caused by Zaki's elevation to the side, however, is the effect it will have on Jozy Altidore. The American scored his long-awaited first Premier League goal in the win over Manchester City, and it was a beauty too. He gave their defence a torrid time, scared the wits out of Chelsea's John Terry a few days before, and then got dropped after the ten-man horror show at Blackburn Rovers which left him isolated. Altidore is evidently a confidence player as he continues to get used to his surroundings. All the self-belief instilled in him after recent performances and that goal will have drained from his system the moment Phil Brown told him he was being jettisoned in favour of someone unfit and untried.

Zaki's rise to the team also meant Jan Vennegoor of Hesselink had to give way. The Dutchman is longer in the tooth and will not be mentally affected by being dropped, but there's little doubt he'd have been annoyed by it, especially as he was genuinely blameless at Blackburn owing to his instant withdrawal for tactical reasons the moment the Tigers were reduced to ten.

The proof, dare we need more of it, that the dreaded 4-5-1 doesn't work is evident from two away games that ended 8-1 on aggregate and in which City were just utterly dire. The Arsenal game is a hiding to nothing anyway, but Brown simply has to restore a 4-4-2 with Altidore playing alongside Vennegoor of Hesselink. There is real mileage in the hope that Altidore can give Sol Campbell as rough a time as he gave Terry and those two Manchester City defenders. And with his pace and Vennegoor of Hesselink's aerial strength, there would be two proper targets for Jimmy Bullard to look for.

Zaki, at best, belongs on the bench. Or in the gymnasium, shifting some weight and gaining some real fitness. And someone really needs to tell him that his brand of simulation just makes his club look weak and dishonest. Right now, there is no place for his type of player in our team.

28: Everton 5 - 1 Hull City - 07/03/2010

2010-03-08T12:33:00.010Z

There has to be a cut-off point in the Premier League when you accept that you are simply not good enough. Hull City have passed that point. Simultaneously, however, they have passed the point where the players know they're not good enough. And that is a worry.

The second half at Goodison Park was a spectacular collapse, and not a jolly one to watch. Everton carved through the Tigers' flimsy rearguard like a knife through melting butter. They barely needed to try. They often didn't, and still succeeded.

Phil Brown needs to have a quiet word with both his team and himself. He reverted to the 4-5-1 system which has failed on so many occasions away from home - the lack of a victory for more than a year now tells its own wretched tale - and while the midfield was blessed with ability going forward, it was spineless in more ways than one when heading in reverse towards its own goal.

Once Brown has had his quiet word with the squad and the mirror, his chairman needs a less quiet word with him. Adam Pearson should, hopefully, be steaming the wallpaper off his manager's office with his anger. The books are improving, the ambition is set out, the estimated figure which will float into the semi-naked City coffers has been publicly revealed. And his manager and team selections look set to ruin it.

It is all the more galling to note that at half time, City were very much in the game. The score was 2-1 but there had been life and presence from the Tigers, including Boaz Myhill's first penalty save since 2006 and a stunning equaliser after Everton's opener had rocked City back on their heels. Everton may well have upped their game in the second half, but in truth they had to after being largely matched all over the pitch.

The last 100 per cent records of the season both went as Stephen Hunt and Andy Dawson succumbed to injury and illness respectively, so a new left hand side was built, with Kevin Kilbane playing behind Nick Barmby. Jimmy Bullard made his much-cheered return to the midfield and Tom Cairney kept his place alongside him. Richard Garcia replaced the suspended Craig Fagan and Kamil Zayatte was a direct alternative to the crocked Anthony Gardner. Multiple changes and, for a bit, proper results.

City had the first chance at a deathly silent Goodison Park - these bigger names really don't feel the need to get excited about playing us - when Bullard chipped a smart ball through the centre for Garcia to chase, and the Australian's attempt at a lob was charged down by a hurrying Tim Howard.

Everton responded with a Mikel Arteta run through the middle that seemed unstoppable until Kilbane got a foot in the way of his final ball. It trundled back to the Spaniard who shot over.

Amr Zaki, a calamitous selection again, made room from a Myhill goalkick but his drive went wide. He duly spent the rest of the game hiding and, when the ball did require him to do some work, diving. Everton again went closer when George Boateng gave the ball away carelessly in the middle and Leon Osman fed Yakubu but the shot touched Myhill's post.

The deadlock was broken soon afterwards when Yakubu worked an opening down the left and crossed long and high for Arteta, arriving late, to guide in a sidefoot volley at the far post with Myhill scrambling across. It was a little bit too easy.

City did respond, however, and Barmby got to a high centre from Boateng but saw Howard charge down his shot. Yet the decent effort from the Tigers looked as though it would be really in vin when a soft penalty was given as Myhill and Zayatte both challenged Yakubu in the six yard box. Yakubu tried to dilly and daly with Myhill but in the end City's custodian guessed correctly, diving low to his right to shove the ball away.

The Tigers were inspired and took ruthless advantage of Everton's shellshock to level up. Paul McShane lifted a high free kick into the box and the headed clearance landed on the chest of Cairney who, from 25 yards out, teed up a scrumptious volley into the far corner for his first Premier League goal. And what a beauty it was too.

Parity didn't last long, mind. Victor Anichebe launched an attack down the right before pulling a lo ball back for Osman. Hearing the shout behind him, he flicked an impertinent backheel into the path of Arteta who beat Myhill with a tidy low shot, placed to perfection. City tried to reply again as Bullard and Boateng swapped passes with Zaki to eventually get Garcia into the box with another late run but the chip was too high. A Kilbane long throw then nearly reached a sniffing Barmby in the area but was hacked clear just in time.

Yet a 2-1 half time score was satisfactory, and so was the City display. There was an opportunity here, a big one too. Everton didn't seem to be in top gear but nonetheless there was something further for the Tigers to contribute too, as if they had rediscovered patience and confidence the moment the influential Bullard was back in the fray.

And so the second half was a shocker.

Concerted pressure from Everton for the whole 45 minutes. City barely squeaked in response. The vibe had gone, the togetherness, the desire. It had been sucked dry from them. Heaven knows what was said or done in the changing room at the break as the players re-emerged as people whose footballing nous and heart had not just gone, but looked like it had barely ever existed.

Substitute Jack Rodwell fired across goal with Everton's first opportunity to extend their lead. Yet when that finally happened, it was down to blundering from the City rearguard that will be remembered in horror for many a long year.

Everton forced a corner, and the ricocheting effect of the ball gave Arteta a run to the byline inside the area. He chipped to the far post where Myhill seemed an obvious claimant, especially as no Evertonian was making ground to get on the end of the bll. The City keeper lost its flight at the last moment and the ball struck an unwitting Garcia square on the head and bounced into the net. As ugly an own goal as you could muster. And now it's 3-1.

Brown withdrew Barmby and Bullard - sensible in the long run, but a premature acknowledgement that the game was over, too - and threw on Geovanni and Jozy Altidore. To say that neither were effective would be an understatement, and the Brazilian looked every inch the unenthralled player back from injury that he was. Such was Everton's confidence at this point that Sylvain Distin made a run from the back and exchanged a one two to give him a clear sight of goal, only for Myhill to save.

Then, a kernel of a chance for City. Cairney swung in a free kick and a large number of heads go up but it is Zayatte's that wins the flick. It went over the bar. The next free kick was so poor from Geovanni that the headed clearance by the first man sent Yakubu in on City's goal after a powerful run, though Myhill was equal to his shot.

The abysmal Zaki was then replaced by Jan Vennegoor of Hesselink as both sides carried on strolling. City were strolling through insufficient ability; Everton through not needing to add any pace thanks to their opponents' insufficient ability. It was a car crash.

Yakubu put a good chance wide from substitute Landon Donovan's cross, with the American then finally making it four when Leighton Baines' cross from the left evaded everybody and left him all the time he needed which, as it turns out, wasn't much. It got worse, as Everton then walked, almost literally, through the beleagured and laughable Tigers defence to put Donovan in a similar position, and this time he pulled it back for Rodwell to score with a precise low shot.

Three minutes were added and they couldn't end too soon. The players' lack of appreciation of the supporters - who, like at West Ham United, were distinctly unvocal aside from one element near the rear - will further rankle with Pearson as he and his manager look ahead to Arsenal and decide what is necessary. Aside from personality transplants and a few contracts being ripped up, it's hard to know. What a disastrous day.

There comes a point where you almost want to leave the Premier League. For all the riches and profile it brings, it also brings little enjoyment for teams and supporters who know that year on year each campaign will be the same. Last season's astonishing crash to earth did make the season interesting if not necessarily enjoyable once Christmas had been and gone, but this time round it is a season lacking in craft, sense, collectiveness and away victories. It is quite depressing to think that the Tigers could yet stay up due to two other teams being even worse, and one being in administration. And it's hard to argue for that as a good thing.

Everton: Howard, Heitinga, Baines, Jagielka, Distin, Neville, Arteta, Pienaar (Gosling 85), Osman (Rodwell 44), Yakubu, Anichebe (Donovan 70). Subs not used: Nash, Hibbert, Yobo, Bilyaletdinov.

Hull City: Myhill, McShane, Kilbane, Zayatte, Mouyokolo, Boateng, Cairney, Bullard (Altidore 62), Barmby (Geovanni 60), Garcia, Zaki (Vennegoor of Hesselink 789). Subs not used: Duke, Cooper, Olofinjana, Ghilas.

The forgotten man

2010-03-06T10:32:00.008Z

With all the discussion of Jimmy Bullard's impending return to action this weekend, it seems that the dual rehabilitation of Geovanni has been completely forgotten.

It seems bizarre to consider the brilliant Brazilian to be a forgotten man. But that's just what he is. He has not been on a teamsheet since warming the bench for the whole 1-1 draw with Chelsea, and last appeared on a pitch at Manchester United. In the four days between the Chelsea game and the win over Manchester City, he somehow hurt a knee and has been recovering from it ever since.

He is now ready to play again, but this piece of news has become entirely incidental, as if his availability does not have the bearing on selection and tactics. When one considers just how crucial he was last season, this is a remarkable turn of events.

The problem for Geovanni is three-fold. Firstly, in half of the games he missed, City did extremely well - the aforementioned home games with Chelsea and Manchester City. Subsequent defeats against Blackburn Rovers and West Ham United were both of a type that meant his dash of unpredictability would have been pointless. The referee's outlandish decision to send off George Boateng did for one, the general incompetence of the team and Craig Fagan's imbecilic dismissal the other.

Secondly, the Brazilian has had little influence this season when he has featured. It comes from a mixture of his own muted form, that of the team, pessimistic tactics and the knowledge opponents now have of him. Therefore, when he did leave the picture for a while, it was difficult to notice.

Thirdly, there is the Bullard issue. Both players are similarly skilled and visionary, but in entirely different ways. Geovanni is, of course, a brilliant individual, yet that's the problem. He isn't a team player, despite efforts this season to turn him as much into an off-ball worker as an on-ball craftsman, and our best memories of him since his arrival have been of things he has created for himself. Bullard, however, uses his immense gifts to create for others, to bring the best out of those wearing the same colours. He is a leader and a figurehead and ultimately the team and the supporters raise their expectations when he is around. Nobody, even last season, has ever done that with Geovanni. When we think about the glorious autumnal spell of 2008, Geovanni was merely the best player in a fine team. He didn't win games on his own - his scoring of the only goal at Tottenham is merely a quarter of the story - and he didn't pick up the majority of plaudits after each match.

None of this is designed to devalue Geovanni. He is a superb footballer and the Tigers remain fortunate to have him. But, at the most, the bench beckons for him tomorrow, especially with Bullard around. It's hard enough to accommodate both of them when each are match fit, never mind do so when both are on the comeback trail. And ultimately, the player everyone is demanding tomorrow is Bullard.

McShane central

2010-03-05T18:13:00.006Z

We know now that it's an absence of at least six weeks for Anthony Gardner after the damage to his ankle ligaments was finally diagnosed.

That may be an optimistic viewpoint, given Gardner's injury record and Hull City's recent record for ambitious prognoses - remember that Jimmy Bullard would, on Phil Brown's prediction, have been fit again for January 30th; he wasn't - and so it may come to pass that Gardner's season ended in a six-yard box at Upton Park.

So, the issue now is who to play at centre back at Everton this weekend?

The obvious choice is Kamil Zayatte, the best defender at the club. However, Brown has kept us all guessing - he likes doing this - by suggesting that Paul McShane may shift across to the middle, with Zayatte or Bernard Mendy playing on the right.

McShane has struggled on the right side of defence lately, albeit as a possessor of the ball rather than as a defender. There is nothing wrong with his commitment, his tackling, his aerial power, his capacity to get up opposition noses. But when needing to pass the ball, or shield it, he has had troubles of late. And he is a central defender by choice, even though he has never played there for the Tigers and wasn't a regular in that position at previous clubs.

Zayatte is a natural footballer and would suit a wider role in defence. It would allow him more scope to go on his lunatic runs, while still instilling within him the discipline and sensibility that goes with being a defender. However, one wonders why Brown would now entertain the idea of putting McShane in the middle and Zayatte on the right, as the two have played together in the back four enough times for him to consider it, and he's never done it. Maybe it is to relieve McShane of the pressures he is currently facing at full back. Maybe it is to give Zayatte a mildly more attack-minded role as rumours persist that he is not happy at the club.

Or maybe, all in all, it's Brown trying to do the mind games thing again.

If McShane plays in the centre, it would only be to accommodate the return of Mendy on the right of defence and, given the Frenchman's tendency to forget what football is whenever he is in the back four, that would be a step backwards of considerable proportions. This wouldn't stop Brown making this change, of course, but at least if the Zayatte/McShane swap goes wrong, they can just go back to where they were.

One hopes that the rumours of McShane shifting into the middle are just that, designed to give fans and bloggers something to debate with themselves before kick-off on Sunday, and to make Everton's management team wonder, just a bit. Gardner needs to be replaced, but don't be surprised (or disappointed) if Zayatte slots straight back into the defence and the rest of it simply stays as it is.

Andy is still handy

2010-03-04T21:19:00.007Z

Andy Dawson may have looked every inch the lower league defender he once was as he blundered his way through the defeat at West Ham United, but still he must be ahead of Kevin Kilbane in the pecking order.

There simply isn't enough overwhelming evidence of Kilbane's suitability for the role. The vast majority of his record-busting 103 caps for the Republic of Ireland have been at left back, but that's all we have - his appearance record in a middling international outfit. It's a laudable achievement of course, but a country that deploys Kilbane at left back so often is, very simply, a country without many good left backs.

The main arguments for Kilbane that some supporters have used all season are based on negativity. Kilbane should play at left back because he isn't Dawson; Kilbane should play at left back because it means he isn't playing in midfield. Neither of these are sensible ways to pick a good football team.

Dawson did have a stinker at West Ham, but he knew it at the time. He cursed himself, took the scoldings from others and knew exactly how much he was letting himself down. He's an experienced professional but that does not preclude him from bad days, yet in his many years at the club, he has had far more good days than bad, and that includes his spell in the Premier League.

Kilbane's role seems to be more as a figurehead than for any great uses with a ball at his feet. This might not be ideal for a person paid to play football, but within City's ranks it seems to be a useful kind of personality to have. He is always seen talking, encouraging, making demands of team-mates when he is on the park, but ultimately there are better players in possession of a football than him within the City squad. And, make no mistake, Dawson is one of them.

Jimmy, when are you coming back?

2010-03-03T10:12:00.007Z

It's peculiar just how much Hull City's destiny seems set to be guided by a player who has, in the grand scheme of things, barely kicked a ball for the club. But with Jimmy Bullard, it remains definitively the case.

That brief period in November when Bullard was fit, and playing so well that he picked up the Player of the Month award as the Tigers were utterly transformed, has acted as the biggest hope for ultimate Premier League survival as, once again, we get tantalisingly close to his latest comeback.

Bullard didn't play in Galway at the weekend, a jaunt organised as City's scheduled Premier League opponents Aston Villa were at Wembley, but has played a proper number of minutes in friendlies against Bolton Wanderers and now, yesterday, Doncaster Rovers. He has scored goals, looked sharp and emerged unscathed.

So will he play on Sunday?

City are at Everton, a form team who will also have a spot of retribution on their mind after what they will probably argue was their biggest humiliation of the season when the Tigers, ironically with Bullard having a rest, took a 3-0 half time lead at the KC and eventually won 3-2.

Much will depend on just how firmly Phil Brown has put a tick next to Everton's name. City have still to win away this season and one suspects that at least one, possibly more, maximum hauls on the road are still required to make sure that top tier status is preserved. The long trip to Portsmouth a fortnight later will have the most profound ticks next to it, and our final away game of the season is winnable too, as it is at Wigan Athletic on the penultimate day.

Given that Arsenal, Villa and Liverpool are still to visit the KC Stadium, that need for points on the road becomes more vital, and so maybe Bullard's inclusion at Everton is necessary as well as welcome. We may still not beat Everton with him, but few will back us to do so without him.

Gardner's world

2010-02-23T19:21:00.009Z

Anthony Gardner has broken no bones, but it looks like a two-month absence for the ex-England defender with ankle ligament damage.

This is clearly a big setback for Gardner, a defender of ability, but his phenomenal injury record suggests that nobody should be surprised that he is on the treatment table again.

Gardner suffered the injury in a typically unfortunate manner, landing awkwardly after challenging Matthew Upson in the Tigers penalty area at West Ham United on Saturday. His awful back injury last season was suffered in similar post-impact circumstances at Arsenal, and generally his promising career has been affected and stalled by one daft or luckless knock after another.

Yet despite his presence as an experienced defender, as well as team captain, his absence may not be sorely felt. Defensive cover is available and champing at the bit in the shape of Kamil Zayatte, who is the best centre back at the club anyway, while Gardner simply isn't a captain of substance and has only had the job through a mixture of politics and default. Worthier candidates are already in the starting XI and George Boateng's re-appointment to the role is a shoo-in.

Even as a defender, Gardner somehow doesn't convince everyone. His big strength seems to be positional play, to go with the advantage in the air that a 6ft 4in frame naturally provides. But he is quiet and sometimes panicky in possession of the ball. Confidence evidently plays a part in his game, and he operates best with a ball-playing defender alongside him, hence why the presence of Zayatte seemed to work best for him.

Since Zayatte's injury, Gardner has struggled to be the senior defender. Steven Mouyokolo's emergence has been tremendous for the young Frenchman but has knocked Gardner a little. Mouyokolo came in for the home game against Wolves and played well, but Gardner was distracted too often, as if he felt his game mainly consisted of seeing his new, raw defensive partner through the match. He was slipshod in possession and conceded a calamitous, comical own goal. He has not looked right since Mouyokolo came in, and yet Mouyokolo is not to blame at all.

Zayatte has been fit again for a while and he and Mouyokolo will partner one another when City return to action a week on Sunday and maybe this will be the partnership that rings truest. Precociousness overtakes experience a little, though Zayatte is no defensive fool (despite being something of a wildcard at times) and while the investment in Gardner means he would rarely be out of the side if entirely fit, there is every opportunity for the two defenders he leaves behind to make his recovery all the more agonising. There is something about the prospect of a Zayatte/Mouyokolo partnership that just feels right already, even though it has yet to feature in a Hull City team and it has taken the sad sight of Gardner being stretchered off yet again to realise this.

Fagan's final felony

2010-02-22T16:09:00.013Z

Once again, the debate about Craig Fagan reopens. And it is only ever Fagan's fault that it does. Another brainstorm, another self-thinking bit of red mist, and the hopes of those around him disappear. That it was against a relegation rival, and therefore, in a game with a big tick next to it on the survival blueprint, makes his actions even more heinous.

Fagan was sent off for two bookable offences at West Ham United on Saturday, but beyond the actual offences, he didn't seem to be up for the scrap with the occasion anywhere near as much as he wanted to scrap with the opposition. The moment he caved into Scott Parker in the first half it was clear he was having one of his mad days, even though it is only wisdom after the event that brings us to this conclusion.

Many have suggested, via forums and chat pages, that Phil Brown should have substituted Fagan at half time. Maybe so. But anyone who has heard Fagan speak will know that he is a peaceable, calm and articulate person who doesn't convey the image of a mad dog at all. Brown may have taken him to one side at the break to check Fagan's mental state and been as fooled as the rest of us.

Fagan's abilities as a footballer, to sound like a broken record for a moment, do not come up to scratch enough to justify the continued indulgence of his darker side. He is honest and his effort is not in question. But he is a player who is full of negative energy, and it's heads or tails as to whether he is going to direct that negative energy positively, such as when he chips around the wing chasing the ball and giving defenders kittens, or in the negative manner seen at Upton Park, which made him believe the world was against him and anyone who had the nerve to take the ball from him or get in his way was going to suffer.

Fagan, in the end, suffered. His team-mates too. City had created little but were still only one down and enjoying a propitious spell with the ball. That died the instant Fagan was dismissed. He wandered down the tunnel, cursing himself, but notably was not acknowledged by his manager or anyone else on the bench as he made his way past the technical zones and towards the changing room.

As there is no game for nearly a fortnight, the dust over Fagan's latest bout of lunacy has ample time to settle. Brown needs to decide if Fagan's contribution to matches on his best days - and there have been enough to make the argument stand up - outweighs the risk of having games ripped from you when he decides he isn't going to act maturely.

This is the Premier League, and therefore risks have to be calculated more and more. Fagan, who will be banned for the match at Everton on March 7th, may never play for Hull City again afterwards. Brown would have had Paul Duffen's support in taking this stand, whereas that of Adam Pearson, a pragmatist who isn't starstruck by football people, would be on the condition that Brown doesn't resort to playing someone horribly out of position in an injury crisis rather than restore Fagan to the team. The most obvious conclusion, however, is that Fagan should be sold in the summer if the Tigers stay up. His bridges simply cannot keep being rebuilt when there are points to be earned, and only a full team with the correct focus can earn them.

Meanwhile, Bernard Mendy or Richard Garcia should now be restored to the team in his place and told they have their best ever chance to keep it for the rest of the campaign.

27: West Ham United 3 - 0 Hull City - 20/02/2010

2010-02-21T12:37:00.037Z

This was as poor a day as Hull City has ever had in the Premier League. A bad team performance, some awful discipline, individual horror shows and at least one bad injury. The fortnight's break ahead is, for once, well timed as everyone involved needs to get their heads right.

Yet again, we find ourselves deciding exactly what worth Craig Fagan truly brings to the team. On his day he can be a useful workaholic, but too often he resorts to the childish, the daft, the red mist, and doesn't offset such peccadilloes with footballing prowess. His sending off was the work of a complete idiot and although the Tigers weren't pulling up trees even before he received his second yellow, the deficit was only 1-0 at the time and an equal number of players per side had preserved the opportunity.

Fagan's only consolation, lukewarm though it may be, is that pretty much nobody could emerge with credit. Phil Brown should include himself in this for dropping Jozy Altidore and giving the still-unfit Amr Zaki his first starting place. There was no justification for this decision. Altidore wasn't injured, Zaki is not ready and picking a player because he was a high-profile signing and might start kicking up a stink if he doesn't play is no way to go about shaping a Premier League team. And now Altidore, who was beginning to show real promise and heart as a Tigers centre forward, will need to have his confidence rebuilt.

No other changes were forthcoming, but you can bet anything you like that there will be ample by the time we play again. Fagan's sending off, Anthony Gardner's nasty looking injury, Jimmy Bullard's expected return (which, despite endless mooting, didn't happen at Upton Park) and a host of wretched displays should prompt a whole new outlook.

West Ham, ahead of the Tigers only on goal difference before the match, started as brightly as City began sheepishly. Boaz Myhill had to change direction to scramble away a ball in from Alessandro Diamanti, but was powerless a minute later when a bad pass from Andy Dawson put Tom Cairney under pressure, and Valon Behrami robbed the youngster of the ball, fortuitously exchanged passes with Guille Franco and slid it home. Three minutes had not quite elapsed, and already it felt like it wouldn't be a good day.

Dawson's gaffe was not his first. Even this most likeable of footballers is not immune to searing criticism and while context is always an issue, there's no doubt that the stuff being thrown his way as he committed error after error was justified. It was a horrid day for a great servant and professional.

He wasn't alone, though. His fellow full back Paul McShane was a distribution and possessional nightmare. Zaki up front showed willing but aside from his lack of shape, his default position upon receiving the ball seemed to be to throw himself on to the turf each time. Cairney was startled, as if he had been suddenly reminded of his inexperience. Stephen Hunt was guilty of his worst performance in a Tigers shirt ever. Fagan was beyond inhuman. Others struggled for room or ideas or composure. Only Myhill, George Boateng and Steven Mouyokolo could say they had done their jobs well.

City did make a chance courtesy of a Cairney free kic, which Jan Vennegoor of Hesselink headed towards the far corner, forcing Robert Green into a good, stretching save. But it was the Irons who were in charge, and a rapid throw-in gave Julien Faubert a crossing opportunity which beat Myhill but was a little too long for Diamanti to divert back towards goal.

Gardner then cut out a through ball to feed Dawson but the pressured full back was quickly relieved of possession by Behrami, but his drive was well beaten out by Myhill.

Fagan was then booked for a late challenge on Scott Parker. Retribution could have been an issue, given that Parker's tackles have played a role in two of Bullard's last three knee injuries. But it was a shockingly timed challenge and the yellow card was deserved. Fagan's focus and professionalism was plummeting very quickly.

Myhill made a wonderful save from Behrami's far post header as the City keeper found himself travelling in the opposite direction to the ball. This briefly inspired the rest of the team, and Cairney miskicked a half chance wide before Boateng made room for a thumping left-footer which Green tipped over acrobatically. Half time and though a poor performance, the damage was reversible.

Then, after a good spell of early second half pressure, the damage was done. Not by a second West Ham goal, but by Fagan's stupidity. Robbed of the ball on the flank by Jonathan Spector, he tripped him up. Not malicious, but dense, as well as pointless. Spector was going nowhere but backwards. Fagan felt a fool, but didn't look more so like one as when he saw the red card brandished before him and had to walk the breadth of the pitch to the tunnel, cursing.

Ten men, and even though it was only Fagan who had gone - and the brand of Fagan who is useless to any team effort anyway - the chance to claw back into the match went with him. City couldn't reshape themselves and West Ham soon took advantage, with Faubert's sublime through ball missing Gardner's last-ditch stretch and allowing Carlton Cole an easy opportunity to place his shot beneath Myhill for 2-0.

Brown made three substitutions at once, withdrawing Cairney, Hunt and Zaki, all of whom had flattered to deceive, to be kind. Of the three who replaced them, Nick Barmby took over as unofficial organiser and Altidore made himself a chance from a Vennegoor of Hesselink flick, but steered the opportunity just wide. Diamanti then had two goes, one of which was from halfway, but each were just off target, though Myhill did help the distant effort out to make sure.

A West Ham corner was met by Matthew Upson, but his header was cleared by Barmby. More tellingly, and worryingly, Gardner landed very badly after challenging Upson and was stretchered off with what was initially diagnosed as a problem with two separate sections of his leg. Dawson was already limping on a bad ankle knock so essentially City were dying with eight men. The final whistle couldn't come quickly enough, though the entertainin Faubert had time in the added minutes to batter a swerving shot past Myhill and make the scoreline ultra-conclusive for the home side..

A totally chronic afternoon for the Tigers, succumbing to a relegation rival with barely a whimper and a whole host of recriminations to dig out. Fagan will deservedly get the brunt of it but too many ineptitudes were on show on and off the pitch, and the Tiger Nation should also feel disappointed with a very quiet show of support in their corner of the ground. A day to forget on so many levels, but the absence of a game next week will make it hard for a bit.

West Ham United: Green, Faubert, Spector, Tomkins, Upson, Parker, Kovac, Behrami, Diamanti (Collison 85), Franco (Ilan 63), Cole (Mido 79). Subs not used: Stech, Da Costa, Noble, Stanislas.
Hull City: Myhill, McShane, Dawson, Gardner, Mouyokolo, Boateng, Cairney (Barmby 65), Hunt (Olofinjana 65), Fagan, Zaki (Altidore 64), Vennegoor of Hesselink. Subs not used: Duke, Zayatte, Kilbane, Garcia.

The Jimmy riddle

2010-02-19T09:56:00.007Z

Phil Brown may only be trying to play mind games over Jimmy Bullard's possible return to the Hull City team this weekend, but they're merely making him look a little foolish.

Earlier this week, this blog suggested Bullard's mooted return would be a fantastic boost for the Tigers. However, since then we have learned that he did not play in the midweek reserve fixture and has not indulged in even one full training session with the squad. This surely means that he cannot and should not play at West Ham United tomorrow.

If Bullard does play a part, Brown will be criticised heavily for risking his star player's health on a game that is not only winnable without him, but expendable when the rest of the season is taken into account.

If it is just mind games, and Brown has no intention of playing Bullard at all but wants West Ham to think it is feasible, then that's the lesser of the evils. But again, professional football is not run by stupid people - not all of the time, anyway - and the hosts of tomorrow's game will suppose that Bullard simply is too unfit to be given any time on the pitch. They'll know as well as anyone that a player who hasn't had a run-out and hasn't trained properly is not going to be effective if he takes part, if he takes part at all. Even if he is the super-talented Bullard, the player who inspired a Tigers comeback against the Hammers at the KC back in November, scoring twice.

The Tiger Nation will warmly welcome Bullard, of course, if he does get a game at Upton Park. But the applause will be cautious and with eyes partly covered. Given Bullard's history since joining City, it will feel like an accident waiting to happen, especially as West Ham was the venue last season where he made his debut as a substitute and took a boot on the knee that ruled him out for nine months. If he plays and it pays off, fine. It will be deemed worth the risk. If he plays and, at worst, is crocked again, then his manager will never be forgiven. Bullard himself needs to be telling Brown the absolute truth about how fit he feels.

As the Tigers aren't playing next week now - the Carling Cup final has scuppered Aston Villa's scheduled visit to the KC - it gives Bullard a whole extra fortnight to train properly, get a match or two in (including the friendly in Galway arranged for next Friday) and be completely ready for the trip to Everton on March 7th. Brown should be aiming for that and, hopefully, that's what he actually is doing. But if so, he is really fooling nobody by saying that Bullard could be ready to play again, as plainly he isn't.

Hello Taylor

2010-02-17T10:28:00.010Z

There is no love lost between Bradford City and Hull City, but if wishing Peter Taylor well today also means wishing Bradford City well, then so be it.

Bradford have appointed Taylor as their manager until the end of the season. They have picked absolutely the right man, providing their board of directors have the requisite faith in Taylor to do the job he needs to do. He was appointed by Adam Pearson to the same role at Hull City almost eight years ago and entirely transformed the side.

The Tigers were 18th in the bottom division when Taylor arrived as a replacement for the unprepared Jan Molby, who had been given the job in the summer but quickly acknowledged as a mistake by Pearson. Taylor's immediate promotion record with Gillingham and Brighton was excellent and he was very highly thought of at the FA too, maintaining his control of the England under 21s.

There followed three and a half seasons of tough decision-making, spirit building and no little money spent, especially for a club in the lower reaches. Taylor steadied Molby's ship and then started the regeneration process that took the Tigers out of the bottom division after seven lonely seasons. He then, to everyone's shock and absolute delight, repeated the feat a year later to get the Tigers into the Championship. And perhaps the most memorable game, for footballing and emotional reasons, was the win at Bradford City.

It was a Sunday lunchtime fixture and, poetically, the travelling Tiger Nation had been given an enormous allocation that allowed them to fill one side of the ground as well as the regular away end. It didn't please Bradford fans, but the memories of Martin Fish, one of Pearson's dubious predecessors, giving play-off chasing Bradford the South Stand at Boothferry Park in 1996 were still raw. Bradford won the game, got promoted and City were relegated. Inevitably, scuffles broke out. It was a nadir few thought would be matchable, though subsequent High Court appearances and winding up orders soon put it to shame. But there were fewer occasions in the awful 1990s when Hull City fans felt so useless and unloved.

So the turnaround was quite remarkable to observe, especially as it was a late season game and City were on the brink of a second successive promotion. The game started perfectly, with Stuart Elliott ramming home a goal in the opening five minutes. The noise when that goal hit the net was beyond explosive.

Nick Barmby sealed it midway through the second half and the 2-0 win was crafted by an awesome team display, with career-defining outings from Damien Delaney, Craig Fagan and even the much-maligned Junior Lewis, and it typified Taylor's tactical policy - play pretty when it suits, and play percentages the rest of the time. Many bemoaned Taylor's style of football when it got ugly, but at times the Tigers were capable of some fantastic stuff and Taylor deservedly got the credit, especially as either way, he got results.

There was real joy in seeing the Tigers do over a fierce Yorkshire rival (a rival that included Dean Windass in their ranks, who spent the game bantering with the Tiger Nation) in spring sunshine while on their own turf, filling their stadium and doing so as part of a promotion campaign which was sealed as successful a fortnight or so later. Bradford were a club in decline, having been in the Premier League and lost all their money, and City would soon be a top-flight club as the Bantams sunk to the bottom. It was a mirror image of the contrasting progress of the two clubs in the 1990s.

Taylor left the Tigers a year later, but the upward-mobility he started was maintained enough to give Phil Brown the tools he needed to earn promotion to the Premier League, for which he and countless others offered Taylor a good chunk of credit.

Now Taylor is charged with getting Bradford's ambition up and running again. It would be no surprise if he did exactly the same job there as he did with the Tigers and, even though it is Bradford City, many will hope he succeeds. Meanwhile, Bradford fans whose eyes de-misted as playing hero Stuart McCall failed as a manager should now realise they have got a proper boss in charge.

Jimmy'll fix it

2010-02-15T19:09:00.009Z

Jimmy Bullard's return to Hull City is currently three weeks overdue, both medically and emotionally.

After he hurt his knee at Aston Villa in November, Phil Brown stated that he could be ready to return by the end of January, with the game against Wolves at the KC being the target.

It didn't happen, but fortunately it seems to have been just through a slightly off-beam estimation of Bullard's recovery. There has been no setback, no relapse, no complication.

And, for the most part, there has been no emergency in his absence either. Certainly there have been games in the super-skilled midfielder's absence which one feels the Tigers could have won with his input - the aforementioned Wolves game, Bolton Wanderers away, Blackburn Rovers home and away - but the rest of the Bullard-free encounters were against sides of such ability that it was hard to imagine him being able to influence them greatly. The draws with Tottenham Hotspur and especially Chelsea were fantastic results but it's most likely that they would not have altered much in Bullard's presence. And Manchester United would still have beaten us twice even if Bullard had been there, at his most mercurial.

This weekend, poetically, sees City go to West Ham United, the place where Bullard did his original knee injury while making his debut for the Tigers as a substitute in the second half. It is also his first professional club. And, with a spot of luck, it is also the place where Bullard may make his latest comeback.

Three weeks have passed since the initial date of guesswork from Brown came and went, but we've got used to not having Bullard around when the team is announced each week. One suspects, however, that he has been giving encouragement and advice to Tom Cairney as the young midfielder continues to fill some quite sizeable boots. If Bullard does return this weekend, almost certainly as a substitute if so, then the boost it will give everyone, as individuals and as a team, will be enormous.

It will also be timely, given that the Tigers are taking on a relegation rival and, despite the farcical evening at Blackburn, have lately put themselves in a position, even without the prompting of their best player, to avoid the drop.

Bullard is having an influence on things still, make no mistake about it. For as long as he is unable to be inspirational on the pitch, he will be making sure he plays a key part off it. Maybe this weekend will start another period - hopefully a more lengthy one - when he will be doing both. And we can all reap the rewards.

By George, they got it right

2010-02-13T10:18:00.007Z

The three lost points from Ewood Park in midweek will stick in the craw for a good while, especially as we don't have a match this weekend and can therefore brood on it for longer, but at least the controversy over George Boateng's red card has been nipped in the bud.

The decision to send the Dutchman off for what was little more than an accidental clash of heads was met with anger and utter disbelief at the time, criticised by both managers immediately afterwards and termed as "unfortunate" by pundits commenting upon television pictures.

The Tigers appealed instantly and fair play to the disciplinary committee at the FA who took one look at the incident, in which Boateng raised his arms in an aerial duel with Morten Gamst Pedersen but connected only with his head, and rescinded the red card immediately.

Boateng's three match ban no longer applies, and the break he clearly needed will now again be just the ten days dictated by the fixture list. He many not have played again for more than a month had the suspension stood, given the further gap in our fixture list caused by Aston Villa's presence in the Carling Cup final in a fortnight, originally earmarked as the weekend of their visit to the KC.

The Tigers don't always get the rub of the green from the FA, with this week also seeing us handed a sterner financial penalty than Arsenal after the Samir Nasri-Richard Garcia kerfuffle in December at the Emirates in the Premier League.

The punishments meted out suggest that City were the sore-losing perpetrators instead of the victims. Exactly why the Tigers were deemed twice as culpable as Arsenal (the Gunners were fined £20,000 and City £40,000) remains a mystery, which one can only conclude was down to simply favouring the bigger, more powerful, more influential club.

Looking through patient eyes at the incident again, Nasri was the violent aggressor while City's players merely protested and protected. Later, upon the issue of charges, the Gunners denied everything but were found guilty, whereas City accepted their role straightaway and didn't waste anyone's time. Yet we get the beefier sanction from the authorities. It simply doesn't add up.

And now we can move on

2010-02-12T10:47:00.008Z

Paul Duffen has reportedly handed over "millions of pounds" as part of the out-of-court settlement finally confirmed yesterday by Hull City in their legal dispute with the ex-chairman.

Millions of pounds? That's a lot of money, obviously. And given that Adam Pearson uncovered millions of pounds worth of debt upon scouring the accounts that Duffen left behind, it is quite an achievement to get this unspecified but sizeable sum back from a man who, for all his business savvy, must have known his creaming of club cash would be unearthed by a diligent successor.

Duffen could still be subject to an FA inquiry but meanwhile it is another feather in the cap of Pearson. Perhaps Duffen thought that a successor other than Pearson wouldn't have had the bottle or sensed enough goodwill from the staff and supporters to make a go of taking him to court. Duffen left the Tigers, only officially, on the Friday and Pearson arrived, again only officially, on the Monday. We were told Duffen had resigned when he was, in fact, sacked; we were not told about Pearson's arrival until the man himself walked into a swathe of flashing bulbs on the Monday, despite his presence at the Burnley game mid-shuffle and quick transmission among supporters and media of one of football's worst kept secrets.

Pearson took a calculated risk when it came to suing Duffen and it worked better than he could have imagined. Of course, a court case could have doomed Duffen further but maybe his offer, made away from prying eyes, was all he could afford and the club felt it right to quit while substantially ahead. Duffen would have been ripped apart in a court of law but would have given as good as he got too. And given his obvious annoyance at not being credited more for his role in the promotion to the Premier League and subsequent survival, he wouldn't have shirked in trying to ruin the club's name entirely, even if he went down with it.

Anyway, the millions of pounds now returned to City coffers can ease some of the instant financial woes that Pearson gravely revealed within days of returning to the hotseat. His belief that this money would return to the club could also explain his insistence that Wolves' ever-rising offer for Stephen Hunt, which peaked at £5 million on the last day of the January window, would be rejected. After all, who needs another club's money when you're due to get back your own? Contrast that Duffen's absolute insistence that Michael Turner had to go, even though Pearson has subsequently said there was no obvious financial reason for it and the player himself was entirely settled and happy.

As for Duffen, one hopes he doesn't get involved in football again. He will now have his assets, including his yacht, back in his possession - a judge froze them at City's request during the action - and maybe he should go for a long sail and try to figure out over a few glasses of bubbly why he will not be fondly regarded by supporters who fulfilled their dreams under his chairmanship. If he doesn't get it, then there are a good few thousand people happy to fill him in.

26: Blackburn Rovers 1 - 0 Hull City - 10/02/2010

2010-02-11T11:37:00.011Z

Ultimately, few people could leave Ewood Park proud of themselves. Blackburn Rovers won the game and maintain an impressive home record, but were wasteful and typically negative. Playing football for Sam Allardyce can rarely be thrilling.

Hull City were extremely poor in contrast to the sunny, vibrant displays at the KC Stadium in recent days and rarely looked like scoring, especially once George Boateng was issued with a straight red card just before half time.

And this is where we reach the figure who should be least proud of all - referee Lee Probert. How he could possibly believe that Boateng had committed an act of violent conduct is beyond anyone's comprehension. The Tigers players went completely potty with him. There was no retrospective view prompted by a later viewing of the incident on television, as it showed that Boateng, albeit with arms raised, went into an aerial 50-50 ball with Morten Gamst Pedersen only with intention of winning the header. No arms connected with the Blackburn player, and both men fell to the deck, grasping their heads.

Mr Probert had the red card out straightaway, although he didn't brandish it publicly at Boateng as the Dutchman had the temerity to be semi-conscious with his face down on the grass. But it was out of his pocket, only semi-hidden in his fist, and the City players saw it, as did the travelling Tiger Nation. There followed a minute of vehement, furious pleading from Boateng's teammates while the Tigers midfielder was given treatment. As he rose gingerly to his feet, even physio Simon Maltby took part in the protests as, finally, the red card was shown. Boateng was helped from the field while the players continued to vent collective spleens at Mr Probert, to the extent that skipper Anthony Gardner had to push them away, knowing that it would alter nothing but may give the authorities licence to hammer the club with another fine.

The decision was ghastly, scandalous, obscene. It must be appealed. It can no way be deemed frivolous by the FA. Even Allardyce himself said afterwards that Boateng was unlucky.

All of this anger and injustice does not, however, equate to an excuse for what was a miserable evening for the Tigers. Blackburn are distinctly unpretty but extremely effective and strong, as is their wont and right. They were dominant before the red card and remained so afterwards. Their stranglehold on the game was tight from the off and City, while occasionally given plenty of possession, rarely looked like the productive, forward-thinking team that had harvested five points from the the previous nine on offer.

Phil Brown picked the same starting XI for the third game in a row after Boateng and Andy Dawson were passed fit following weekend knocks. The bench was identical from Saturday's win over Manchester City too.

Blackburn had the first chance when Boateng conceded a soft free kick which Pedersen swung into the six yard area and Ryan Nelsen won cleanly in the air, only for Boaz Myhill to tip it over from pretty much point blank range. City responded with Stephen Hunt trying an off-ground volley which went over the bar after Jan Vennegoor of Hesselink headed Paul McShane's free kick into his path.

Myhill then pushed away a Pedersen free kick which lad to chaotic scenes in the Tigers area, culminating in Steven Nzonzi spooning a decent chance wide. Again the Tigers had a response, with Hunt playing some smart keepie-up to get the ball under control before feeding Vennegoor of Hesselink, whose low left foot drive was well pushed aside by Paul Robinson.

The breakthrough was deeply unflattering to McShane, who was caught out of position, and ultimately Myhill. A ball down the left allowed Martin Olsson to shuffle free of the covering Craig Fagan and put a low ball in from the byline which clipped the inside of Myhill's heel just enough to divert itself into the far corner. The angle would have been impossible, especially at the pace Olsson was running, for a goal to be scored without the City keeper's help, and so it goes down as an own goal. Olsson's perseverance should allow him to claim the chance. Irrespective of the scorer's identity though, it was a woeful piece of play all round from the Tigers.

There followed a long period of nothingness. Blackburn sat tight, City had little appetite for getting forward. It was a freezing Lancashire evening. It doesn't show much class to have a pop at a team for protecting leads at home, and the Tigers have been victim of many a bitter, unwarranted stab from supporters of teams who couldn't break us down - Tottenham fans after the goalless game at White Hart Lane were especially unkind and charmless. But it can't do the soul good to be paying to watch this sort of football week on week. Be cautious and stoic away from home, by all means. But at home, there has to be something more for the supporters. Allardyce is, and has always been, one of those managers who doesn't equate football with entertainment, merely with results. It's hard to argue with the sentiment, but easy as a romantic to confront his approach.

Myhill held a long range volley from Olsson and then Gardner made a tremendous block as El-Hadji Diouf ran on to a Brett Emerton - Mr Probert gave a goal kick as a bonus, which albeit in our favour, was another wrong decision and would soon not be remotely his worst. Blackburn embarked upon another scramble in the Tigers box afterwards with both Gael Givet and Nzonzi having efforts charged down before Myhill could fall gratefully on to the ball.

Boateng's red card and his colleagues' red mist then followed, and Brown slung on Seyi Olofinjana to fill the gaping hole left in the midfield, withdrawing the crestfallen Vennegoor of Hesselink, who nonetheless left the field the understanding professional, applauding the fans as he exited.

Nikola Kalinic flicked an injury time corner from Diouf just wide at the near post which Myhill seemed to lose all ends up, before a half time whistle offered the players a chance to calm themselves and the City fans ample opportunity to aim vocal brickbats the way of the referee. Boy had he got it wrong.

The second half was threatening to be a total non-event. The life and spirit had been sucked from City via the unjust dismissal of a major influence, while Blackburn's life and spirit was on hold thanks to their desire to maintain the status quo of one strike and you're out. Brown eventually got fed up with this and, in an admirable show of optimism, withdrew both full backs - in the case of McShane it was as much a mercy withdrawal as anything as he had stunk the place out - and threw on Amr Zaki up front and Kamil Zayatte at the back. This made for a 3-4-2 formation which would probably require Fagan and Hunt to play, at times, as wing backs. This was evident within seconds of the restart as Emerton was freed on the right of the area with Hunt nowhere to be seen and belted a shot goalwards which Myhill did brilliantly to keep out.

Myhill then superbly palmed a Givet header from Diouf's corner on to the bar before the Tigers, led by the blatantly unfit but eager to please Zaki, began to look the correct way. The squarely-built Egyptian was fouled on the edge of the box but rushed the free kick, lifting it on to the roof of the net. When a corner was forced soon afterwards, Zaki crossed in a terrific second ball but Steven Mouyokolo failed to play to the whistle and headed the ball half-heartedly at Robinson while waiting for a signal for offside that never came, either via flag or whistle.

Another free kick was then forced by Tom Cairney, quiet but not majorly culpable all evening, and the youngster chipped it diagonally for Zayatte to win but the header was weak and straight to Robinson. Four minutes were added and soon went. The game was lost, the performance was terribly disappointing after all that had gone before.

Boateng's red card didn't lose City the match - the Tigers were already behind and any reply against Blackburn on their own patch is hard-earned with even the full quota of contributors on show - but it certainly played games with the focus and spirit of the City players that remained, and little followed to suggest that an equaliser was possible. Boateng can appeal and should appeal, but beyond his personal battle ahead, Brown needs to decide whether a team that can play so well against big names and then so badly against a smaller outfit needs altering, or whether it counts as a blip mitigated by the referee's hapless decision to reduce the numbers to ten.

Fortunately, he has ten days to figure it out as there is no fixture this weekend. And by the time the Tigers venture to London for the final time this season with the trip to West Ham United, a certain Jimmy Bullard should also be in a position to give the manager a further cause for change.

Blackburn Rovers: Robinson, Givet, Nelsen, Olsson, Salgado, Pedersen, Emerton (Roberts 70), Nzonzi, Andrews, Diouf, Kalinic (Reid 90). Subs not used: Brown, Chimbonda, Jones, Di Santo, Hoilett.
Hull City: Myhill, McShane (Zayatte 67), Dawson (Zaki 67), Gardner, Mouyokolo, Boateng, Cairney, Hunt, Fagan, Vennegoor of Hesselink (Olofinjana 44), Altidore. Subs not used: Duke, Kilbane, Barmby, Garcia.

Tom 'n' George

2010-02-10T10:01:00.011Z

If you can get a partnership made up of youthful exuberance and wizened leadership in any part of the field then you are on to a good thing. In the Hull City midfield, that is precisely what has happened.

There were calls for Tom Cairney to become a fixture in the Premier League starting XI for some time, but in the last three matches it has finally happened. The evidence of his calmness on the ball, vision when releasing it and general approach play was obvious during his Carling Cup and FA Cup appearances and now, finally, he is showing it at the top level too.

Alongside him there has been something of an Indian summer for George Boateng, a player almost twice Cairney's age and, as such, half of his energy and capacity to get around the pitch. Yet the experienced Dutchman has been revelatory at the base of the resourceful City midfield since Phil Brown switched to a 4-4-2.

Boateng has brought out the best in Cairney and Cairney has brought out the best in Boateng. Young enthusiasts need someone longer in the tooth to guide and cajole them; elder figureheads need someone less mature to do their running and take the pressure off their need to defend and protect. It couldn't have worked out better for all concerned.

The captain's armband, passed round this season like a parcel at a children's party, currently occupies the humerus of Anthony Gardner, but the real inspiration has come from Boateng in the very middle of the park. He won't get the captaincy back as it will devalue Gardner's contribution and he has already had it this season anyway, prior to his period of exile when he fell out with Brown, but it really doesn't matter. He is leading. And his superhuman efforts in the last three games, especially for a player deemed to rickety to manage more than one game a week, have been arguably the biggest single factor in City's acquisition of five points from nine. His goal against Manchester City, a terrific strike and a rare beast, was not only deserved but also quite poetic.

Cairney has caught the eye of the tabloid newspapers who inevitably have already begun to link him with bigger clubs, despite there being no evidence whatsoever for the likes of Liverpool and Tottenham to be looking at him, but it will do the player no harm at all to feel really loved and wanted, as long as he realises that the main love and desire comes from the club he currently stars for, and the fans who follow it. He is the genuine article and for a club still living in Mike Edwards' shadow as far as productivity from within its own ranks is concerned, he is hugely important.

When Jimmy Bullard comes back, there may still be room for Cairney's brand of creativity, especially as his tender years give him the lungs to get around the pitch at will too. But for the time being, he and his veteran Dutch teammate have given us a midfield for others really to envy. Even allowing for Bullard's much-awaited return, and that of Ian Ashbee eventually, long may this continue.

Everything in the garden looks Jozy

2010-02-09T11:31:00.005Z

For reasons far beyond his smashing first Premier League goal for Hull City, Jozy Altidore deserves multiple pats on the back.

There is a tremendous interview with him in the Daily Mail this morning, showcasing the youngster's decency and modesty as he explains his familial connections with Haiti and admits to helping the relief effort with both campaigns and his own money.

This proves beyond all doubt that the youthful American striker, whose parents are both Haitian, knows where his priorities lie even within an industry renowned, perhaps unfairly at times, for the selfishness and indolence of those earning the biggest money. His story is thoughtful and personal, and he accepts that while his work to help his nation of origin continues, he also has a job to do in Hull.

And with that excellent goal, the opener in the 2-1 win over Manchester City, he is truly doing that job. With Altidore's recent form as a worker and provider for his team, it had become less of an issue that this powerful centre forward had not yet provided a goal in 17 Premier League appearances. But now that duck has been broken, and broken with real finesse too, he may just be inspired. He certainly doesn't look like the sort of striker who doesn't get many goals - many of his near-misses were on target - so renewed hope will be on his broad shoulders that more of the same is due.

For all the impatience with players that football fans can show, there has been tremendous goodwill for Altidore so far. It is a refreshing brand of patience which has taken into account the player's age, new surroundings and the pace of the game he is now expected to play. He is also just naturally likeable and has given from day one the impression that he is honoured to be with the Tigers. The perseverance of Altidore has paid off for him, and now he looks like a Premier League player. He is fit, exudes power, has real pace and a real thirst for hard work.

He was beginning to show these attributes week on week, but the tiny doubt remained while his Premier League goal record was nil. Now that final hurdle has been cleared, who knows what he can go on to do?

Mutual consent

2010-02-08T11:48:00.007Z

Common sense seems to be behind the apparent mutual agreement between Hull City and ex-chairman Paul Duffen to settle their legal differences out of court.

Duffen is addicted to media exposure and would have loved his day in court. Ultimately the cards were dealt by the Tigers in order to make plain their disapproval of Duffen's conduct as chairman - he has been accused of taking money from agents in return for club dealings, and also transferring club money to his other business ventures - but even though the case was strong, it could have been more of a pyrrhic victory had it continued.

A club dragging its own name through the British legal system, even with good cause and confidence of success, does not look good for the club itself nor for the sport it represents. Duffen's narcissism when in charge would have re-emerged and, as a skilled and shameless performer in public, he would have revelled in the occasion when called to give evidence. For all the club's public disassociation with Duffen's tenure as chairman (difficult when it involved promotion to the Premier League and a subsequently rather memorable survival therein), it still would have been harmful to its standing had it allowed its evidence of wrongdoing to be aired and debated in a public courtroom.

This way, Duffen doesn't get his day in court and the Tigers can feel vindicated in taking action against him. That an out-of-court settlement now seems likely allows Duffen to look culpable and the club to look generous and self-protective. Duffen doesn't win and his reputation stays tarnished, but he keeps the gory details to himself. It's a perfectly acceptable outcome for the club and the best that Duffen could have wished for.

Of course, there has still been no official confirmation from either the club or its former chairman, presumably until the terms of the settlement are finally agreed. One assumes discussions and negotiations are ongoing.

An interesting aside from this whole sorry business is the revelation that while Duffen publicly fell on his sword in October with faux-gallantry over his responsibility for poor form on the pitch (and then separately told every available media outlet so, rather than issuing a brief statement and disappearing to his yacht), he had actually been sacked by Russell Bartlett earlier the same week. It seems that even his one act of genuine selflessness was a sham.