This has been a terrific week for Hull City. A marvelous result at Manchester City, darlings of the media and Jimmy Bullard named as the Barclays Player of the Month for November. This being Hull City, it all had to fall apart at some point and fall apart it did, in spectacular fashion at Villa Park. The Tigers made a dreadful start and were lucky to be only one goal behind when Jimmy Bullard left the pitch after 10 minutes, looking for all the world like his knee was seriously injured. For those who'd been at Villa Park last season, it was all too familiar; the sight of Ian Ashbee grounded on the turf still a vivid memory. City were so inept that there was never a chance of a recovery, so we gifted Aston Villa another couple of goals and slinked off home.
The Gaffer
Phil Brown chose to change to a 4-5-1 formation, presumably to try and overrun Villa in midfield, where they play a traditional looking 4-4-2. On paper, it wasn't a bad plan, though finding some room for Geovanni would have been better. It didn't really work though, in the main because every one of our players was rotten from the outset. Even the usually wonderful Bullard played more poor passes in ten minutes than he had in his previous three games. Hunt and Garcia were doing a nice job of making it a three up front when we had possession but we were so careless with the ball that we never got close to using them. Phil Brown must have been pulling his hair out.
The substitutions were strange, particularly when Bullard went off. I've got no problem with us bringing Fagan on up front as he and Altidore have linked up nicely but having worked on a 4-5-1 all week, surely slotting Geo in front of Boateng and Marney was the change to make. In the second half, it became farcical. The City fans were already frustrated due to the pathetic performance, Bullard's injury and the Geolessness when PB got Nick Barmby ready. I commented that he'd probably push Garcia and Fagan as the front pairing, just to wind us up. He did too. When Big Jan was preparing to come on, I said "it must be Garcia coming off" to which my friend replied "knowing Browny today, he'll take off Marney" and he did too. One all. That made it three changes in personnel and about 8 changes in the system to accommodate it.
It didn't take much for the dissent against Brown to rise from some in the away end, though most were very supportive of the team and the manager. It was a bad day for everyone and I'm sure Browny will learn from it. What I'd like him to take from it is that it's best for us to worry about what we are doing and not try to accommodate the opposition. Our 4-4-2 has been rigid of late, allowed us to create and to protect with equal measure.
The Defence
The first Villa goal is one of the worst I can recall us conceding in the last 20 years. We'd already had 3 escapes as Duke saved well in the first minute from Luke Young then pushed away a corner that he'd horribly misjudged and then Heskey scuffed a shot wide after Zayatte had played him onside. We cleared the resulting corner and looked in decent shape. Then as Jimmy Bullard pressured Petrov, everyone inexplicably moved to our right, leaving Richard Dunne alone in the penalty area in 20 yards of space. For the benefit of any City players reading this, I'll point out that Richard Dunne is the massive guy in a claret shirt wearing the captain’s armband. As far as I'm aware, he isn't actually invisible. He had all the time in the world to compose himself and rattle in an unstoppable shot. A fine finish for a centre half but he was given so much time that we might as well have just scored for them.
Defensively, we did get a little better. Though in the main, the scoreline stayed low because Villa didn't care much to press us in the second half. Zayatte managed to repel the threat of Agbonlahor, sometimes as a result of some unorthodox defending, other times as the result of holding, pulling or kicking but regardless, he did the job. Gardner too eventually got to grips with Heskey, literally, once we'd already chucked the game away. Gardner twisted or pulled something in the second half, blocking a shot, and looked mighty uncomfortable for the remainder of the game. Hopefully we'll see him again at some point this year. It's hard to be too harsh on Zayatte and Gardner because they were over-worked due to the incompetance of those around them. Neither full back ever looked like stopping Young and Downing putting the ball in whenever they pleased and shots were made from distance under no pressure whatsoever.
Duke had a 'mare'. He did make a couple of fine stops, the aforementioned save from Young and a wonderful flying save to deny Kamil Zayatte a 500th O.G. in City colours. Otherwise, he was slow off his line, indecisive in the air and got nowhere near anything he came off his line for. He conceded a horrendous second goal by coming out of the box for a ball that Dawson had covered and headed the ball into sub Steve Sidwell's hands. One quick throw later and James Milner lifted the ball beautifully into the Duke-less goal. As much as it was all Duke's fault, not one of our other players reacted to it at all. A left back with any foresight would have rugby tackled Ashley Young as he took the throw-in!
Dukey then conceded a late penalty but the game was well gone by that point. As a unit, we have a very soft centre, we don't make enough tackles in midfield and our full backs have had their 2 good games in every 10. Full back is a must improve area in January.
The Middle
From the off, we looked sluggish in midfield and didn't pass the ball at all well. In fact, we had trouble even moving with the ball without tripping over our own feet or miscontrolling it to the opposition. The 4-5-1/4-3-3 system never stood a chance amongst such incompetence. The only member of the midfield who came out with any credit was George Boateng. He passed well into the feet of the front players and won the ball in midfield. He was severely frustrated by the performance of the abysmal referee, Stuart Atwell, who stopped him being competitive in the middle on many occasions when all he'd done is use his strength to get him in ball-winning situations.
Dean Marney was a waste of time again, completely ineffective at both ends of the pitch and in the middle as well, just for good measure. Without Bullard, we just don't have a player capable of taking responsibility for the ball, dictating the tempo of the game and creating goal scoring opportunities. That was the situation 12 months ago and it's been the situation for all but 4 matches in 2009. If, god forbid, Jimmy Bullard is going to be absent for a long period then in January we'll have to find the money to buy a proper midfield player or we are going to be in serious trouble.
Stephen Hunt worked willingly again and cheered the City fans with his ability to wind up the opposition and stick the boot in but showed none of the ability we've seen recently. His set piece delivery was terrible too. Garcia looked like a player once the game had gone. When we were still in it, he was clumsy and awkward.
The Front Line
You'll be forgiven for wondering whether there actually was one. Altidore didn't look like he fancied the lone role up front. He barely had a touch. He was left mainly to wait around for some supply. In that situation, he just goes to sleep. When we had a little rally before half time, he came to life for 3 or 4 minutes, linked up well with Hunt then took a couple of kicks (unpunished by the idiot referee) and disappeared from the game again. Fagan put in a lot of effort and achieved little. He did hit the bar in the second half, which was the only shot City managed in 98 minutes that went anywhere near the goal.
So why didn't Geo make an appearance? To be honest, at half time, I might well have left him off myself. The weather was poor, the game was gone and he'll need to play a big part next week. Why he didn't come on for Bullard is beyond me. That said it would have required an almighty performance to lift the team in the frame of mind they were in today. This sort of performance was pretty much the norm until October. If it becomes the norm again, then we will all be supporting a team in the Championship next season, no doubt about it.
Ratings: Duke 5, McShane 5, Dawson 5, Gardner 6, Zayatte 6, Garcia 5, Hunt 6, Boateng 7, Marney 5 (Hesselink), Bullard (Fagan 6), Altidore 5 (Barmby).