Positives? We didn’t lose, we scored twice, Tom Cairney acquitted himself well on his Premier League debut. We’re still in touch at the bottom of the table and we know City can play much better than this. Oh, and Jimmy Bullard is back soon.
We start with positives because, to be frank, they’re outnumbered by the negatives from this match. We’ve led three times in our two games against Wolves and won neither. That’s sloppy, wasteful, relegation-inducing stuff. We mean no slight to Wolves, but to toss away winning positions against one of the division’s weaker sides is bitterly disappointing.
Losing the lead twice yesterday were: Myhill; McShane, Mouyokolo, Gardner, Dawson; Mendy, Boateng, Cairney, Hunt; Altidore, Vennegoor of Hesselink. Five changes from the side that Wayne Rooney swatted aside at Old Trafford a week earlier, and arranged in a pleasing 4-4-2 formation.
Tom Cairney was making his Premier League debut for the Tigers after impressing in cup matches and reserve team fixtures earlier in the season, having recently made a few appearances on the bench. He was paired in midfield with George Boateng, while Bernard Mendy’s reward for a thrilling cameo appearance at Manchester United last week was the right-wing spot usually held by Richard Garcia, demoted to the bench where he was accompanied by Amr Zaki.
Also coming in were Jozy Altidore, recently returned from compassionate leave in America owing to family connections in Haiti, Jan Vennegoor of Hesselink was brought in as his strike partner, while Zayatte’s absence saw Mouyokolo partner Gardner in midfield. Stephen Hunt, the objection of Mick McCarthy’s affections, lined up on the left and was serenaded by the Circle. The Wolverhampton fans in the North Stand replied with “should’ve signed for a big club”. An accurate assessment unfortunately – given our financial predicament Adam Pearson would have a tough decision to make if a big club does come in for him.
City dropped two valuable points by twice allowing Wolverhampton Wanderers to come from behind in an entertaining but ultimately unsatisfactory match at the KC.
Phil Brown cleared the decks and picked a new team, making a total of five changes from the thumping by Manchester United. These included Tom Cairney’s much-anticipated Premier League debut and a hefty strike pairing of Jan Vennegoor of Hesselink and Jozy Altidore. The latter was soon setting up a splendid opening goal for the former, with the Dutchman steering home a shot from the edge of the box.
Wolves nearly equalised several times through their set-pieces, which City struggled to deal with, but at half time the lead was preserved. However, Anthony Gardner miskicked a Ronald Zubar cross into his own net soon after the break to gift the visitors an equaliser.
Stephen Hunt, whose services have been lasciviously courted by Wolves in recent weeks, restored the lead with a well-taken penalty after Altidore was fouled in the box, but Matt Jarvis drove home the equaliser after the Tigers failed miserably to clear their lines several times as Wolves piled on the pressure.
A point each will do each side little good, even though results generally were favourable elsewhere, and it should be regarded as a chance spurned as City now look ahead to the rearranged visit of Chelsea to the Circle on Tuesday night. Match report to come before long.
Must not lose? Must win? Our most important Premier League fixture this season? Ever?
Maybe. Maybe not. But quite possibly so. With Chelsea and Man C on the horizon and City already second bottom, defeat in this fixture would be a massive blow to our hopes of survival. Victory would be a huge boost. It’s no exaggeration to say that by 5pm tomorrow, the whole season could feel very different, in very different ways.
With the controversy over Paul Duffen’s tenure as chairman falling down the news agenda this week, most of the talk has been team-based. A welcome change, perhaps. Will Jimmy Bullard be fit? No, we now know. Wil Amr Zaki play? Yes, most likely from the bench.
But creeping beneath these two big issues has been the emergence of doubt over Kamil Zayatte, struggling with an ankle injury. In the worst-case scenario that Phil Brown must be preparing for, he could be one of many absentees. Geovanni and Kamel Ghilas have also had their preparations for the game disrupted by injury, while Seyi Olofinjana remains on national duty in Angola.
Problems then, for a City side winless in eight games. Things are little better for Mick McCarthy, whose Wolves will be missing Keogh, Murray, Kightly and Edwards. Elokobi could also miss out owing to illness. (more…)
Bryan Hughes has left Hull City “by mutual consent” after two and a half years with the club.
Hughes, formerly of Birmingham City and Charlton Athletic, pretty much ceased to be in Phil Brown’s plans after the Tigers won promotion to the Premier League, though made a handful of appearances last season.
The experienced midfielder joined the club on a free transfer in the summer of 2007 and contributed fitfully, but occasionally wisely, to the promotion campaign. He was fortunate to play a full part in the play-offs after Dean Marney was injured on the final day of the regular season, though he did nearly score at Wembley with an injury time free kick.
He ended up with just one goal for the club (in the 5-0 win over Southampton – and the keeper should have saved it) and in recent times came to epitomise the excesses of the Duffen era, taking no part in first team matters (even in the Carling Cup) and not even being assigned a squad number, yet picking up a large wage from a club desperately trying to save money.
Hughes spent some time on loan at Derby County earlier this season and is now a free agent. Despite an especially featureless spell with the Tigers, only confirmed churls would choose not to wish him well for the future.
With City lying 19th in the Premier League table on 19 points, Saturday’s home game against Wolves, placed 17th on 20 points, assumes added importance. A win would see us leapfrog the men from Molineux and likely move out of the bottom three, defeat however would confirm we are worthy denizens of the trapdoor spots. With that in mind, here’s a clip of City vanquishing Wolves during the 1976/77 season, a 2-0 win at Boothferry Park with both City goals coming from noted amateur-professional and antique valuer John Hawley. Wolves wearing black shorts with gold socks in Hull is a bizarre sight, but back then City paired white shorts and socks with their black and amber striped shirts. The peerless Barry Davies commentates…
Manchester United defender Rio Ferdinand has been charged with violent conduct by the FA after being seen to give Hull City striker Craig Fagan a bit of a smack during the Premier League game between the two at Old Trafford at the weekend.
The incident was missed by referee Steve Bennett – who depressingly booked Fagan afterwards for his vehement protests – but was captured and played over and over again by television stations with rolling sports news. The national papers, with some predictability, barely mentioned Ferdinand’s indiscretion in their reports, leading to questions about bias – and about whether Fagan would have been castigated had it been he who had issued a backhander across the England defender’s chops.
Ferdinand, who admittedly is not prone to acts of off-the-ball violence, has until Wednesday evening to respond to the charge and will be banned for three matches if he pleads or is found guilty. It will be of little consolation to City whatever the outcome, given that the horse had long bolted when Bennett and his assistants (one of whom had, coincidentally, been shoved into the pitchside gulley by Fagan earlier in the game) failed to spot the incident. Football can, however, be mildly thankful that the FA have chosen to charge one of the game’s megastars for an incident involving a player with a much-smaller club.
Another shot to nothing, and this time nothing is what we got – but as we survey the second Wayne Rooney Show of the season, we still find reasons to be cautiously optimistic that this season will not end in failure.
As we trooped from our £51 seats at Old Trafford under the jarringly ill-conceived Munich Tunnel into the cool Manchester evening, Norwich-scarfed halfwits performing like trained seals for the attendant Sky Sports News cameras, the more sullen could be forgiven whether it was worth hoping that City survive. The Premier League can be both great and awful.
Thankfully, City weren’t awful. Not especially good either, but reasonable enough. For better or worse, Phil Brown opted to field the same XI that drew at Spurs the week before: Myhill; McShane, Gardner, Zayatte, Dawson; Garcia, Boateng, Barmby, Geovanni, Hunt; Fagan. We’ll skip over the debate about playing Craig Fagan up front as a lone striker here. It’s been done to death.
All a bit one-sided in the end, but it took until the 80th minute before Wayne Rooney finished off a spirited Tigers side at a deathly silent Old Trafford in the day’s only Premier League game.
Rooney slotted in a first half opener after Boaz Myhill had beaten a fierce Paul Scholes drive into his path, but although the champions had opportunities to shut down the game afterwards, they couldn’t penetrate a strong City rearguard and it remained 1-0 at the break, with Nick Barmby coming closest for Phil Brown’s men when he latched on to a terrible Jonny Evans back header but his angled shot straight at Edwin Van der Sar.
The introduction of Bernard Mendy as a substitute made a terrific impact, just as it did in the same fixture last season, and the Frenchman was on fire as he gave Patrice Evra the runaround but City couldn’t make anything of his wingplay. The best chance of an equaliser fell to fellow sub Kamel Ghilas, who turned smartly in the box but chiselled his shot a few yards wide from a tight angle.
United made it safe when Myhill’s uncharacteristic flap at a free kick turned the ball on to the bar, and although City half-cleared in a panic, chaos reigned as the ball returned to Rooney and he fired home. He then turned in his hat-trick goal from Nani’s cross, which the Tigers didn’t deserve, and had the temerity to batter in a fourth after too much dithering among the City defenders, which City definitely didn’t deserve. The footballing view from the cramped, hideously expensive away end was that United are very, very ordinary without Rooney, who has scored five times against City this season. Their fans barely bothered with the game when there was a bunch of irresponsible Yanks bleeding them dry to (quietly) moan about instead. It really is a mystery why a stadium so full and historic and scenic should be so damned silent.
City gave it their best shot, and crucially, didn’t look a team in turmoil as the shenanigans in the boardroom and law courts threaten to dominate the headlines at the Circle for the time being. The display, especially from the back four, will be heartening for Brown et al with the much-highlighted home fixture against Wolverhampton Wanderers next on the list. And that is one to win, win, win.
In a shock move today, Hull City has announced that it is taking High Court action against Paul Duffen for “actions undertaken… while in office at Hull City”.
Much has been made by Adam Pearson of the worrying finances at the club since he regained power after Duffen quit the chairmanship suddenly in October, and this latest development is worrying and gripping in equal measure.
Duffen left the club, supposedly in a gesture of gallantry as the club struggled on and off the pitch, with severely limited popularity after selling Michael Turner and defending the lack of submitted accounts, but only when he had gone was it revealed how little the club eventually received for its star player and how much turmoil the books seemed to be in.
However, the club has not gone into specific detail about the nature of and reason for this unusual and serious action. The full statement reads: “Hull City Football Club has now issued legal proceedings against Paul Duffen in the High Court.
“This action has been being taken to protect the commercial best interests of the football club against the actions undertaken by Paul Duffen while in office at Hull City.”
Crumbs. Now would be an interesting time for Russell Bartlett, owner and sole shareholder of the club and the man who employed Duffen and then re-employed Pearson, to break his long silence. Amid all this Phil Brown, yachting buddy of Duffen and pressured employee of Pearson, has to prepare a team to take on Manchester United this weekend.
Hull City’s game with Aston Villa at the Circle at the end of February has been postponed as Villa will now have a Wembley date that weekend.
Martin O’Neill’s men completed a 7-4 aggregate win over Blackburn Rovers last night in the semi-final of the Carling Cup and will play one of the Manc clubs in the final on Sunday February 28th.
Their Premier League fixture with City was scheduled for the day before, so now City have another free weekend to look forward to and the prospect of a further midweek game at the KC later in the season. A new date has yet to be announced for the match.
Positives? We didn’t lose, we scored twice, Tom Cairney acquitted himself well on his Premier League debut. We’re still in touch at the bottom of the table and we know City can play much better than this. Oh, and Jimmy Bullard is back soon.
