A cursory look at the Premier League table suggests all is not lost for Hull City, and today those fans who expound a ‘keep the faith’ philosophy will be reminding us of that. What though, after a truly abject and spineless 4-1 defeat at home to Burnley (a team who‘d previously taken just a single point away all season and are managed by the incontinent Brian Laws), is there to have faith in?

A belief that some divine power looks favourably on Hull City and will supernaturally intervene and save us seems infinitely more plausible than a suggestion that our players will get enough points out of the available fifteen to keep us in the Premier League, as on the evidence of this game the players we have fall neatly into two categories…

Those who care but lack enough ability to make a true difference.

Those who are genuinely talented, but just don’t give a damn.

Iain Dowie’s words to the Daily Mail before this game acknowledged this, “These are very wealthy young men. The extrinsic motivation has been taken away in the modern game” The ugly man has been brought to the club to instil some non-wealth based motivation, but no matter how inspiring a manager (or temporary football management consultant) makes his team talks/PowerPoint presentations, if key players choose not to listen, it’s all for nothing. So it proved against Burnley.

The enormity of this game had been trumpeted by the media all week long, this was Premiergeddon, judgement day in terms of top flight worthiness for these two sides. Those found lacking were:

Myhill. Dawson, Mouyokolo, Sonko, McShane. Kilbane, Boateng, Bullard, Mendy. Altidore and Fagan.

And yet, for a time, as light from the heavens shone on the KC Stadium, it was good. Just to make this devastating defeat even more painful, the deceitful bastards in amber shirts had the temerity to make it look like they were up for this game for the first ten minutes or so.

After the chucklesome spectacle of an injured Burley player being hit by the ball twice as play continued (the second impact a smashed shot/cross into him as he picked himself of the floor) City took the lead. Craig Fagan on the right cleverly dinked the ball laterally into the path of a sprinting Jozy Altidore, his considered and arcing cross picked out Zinedine Kilbane, all alone, and the Irishman headed downwards and past the shaky looking Jensen. 1-0, and the Tiger Nation roared in exultation.

Warning signs at the other end were cheerfully ignored as City led in the sunshine, “Brian Laws is a wanker” was chanted lustily by both sets of fans. Our defence’s confidence looked shaky to start with and became shakier still after Bo Myhill twice sliced clearances to the opposition and Sonko, clearly not confident Myhill would deal with a bouncing ball in the box, punted it wildly back towards those in claret shirts (and it has to be said, rather fetching hooped socks).

Still, City had chances, good ones that we frittered away. Bullard tried the elaborate flick up and volley free kick that worked in the reserves but not here as the end shot flew over the bar. Altidore turned his man superbly in the box but his shot was lacking and cannoned off a spread Jensen, the rebound falling to Bullard who thwacked an outside of the foot shot narrowly over.

At this point, some felt a victory was going to be easy, after all Burnley conceded early last week against another City going on to lose 6-1, so we’ll run riot here and jump out of the bottom three, right? Wrong. Very wrong.

As the game wore on, Burnley were increasingly being allowed unchallenged possession. They’re a poor side, make no mistake about it, but you don’t need to be Barcelona to take advantage of sustained possession and that’s what we were now granting the visitors.

McShane and Nugent wrestled each other for the ball in midfield and for a second it looked set to ’get nawty’ as they squared up to each other, but choosing neither fight or flight, the pair gave each other a cuddle.

The mildly touching moment gave way to searing pain for those of a City persuasion however as Burnley clawed level. Kilbane blocked a Mears cross, but then failed to stop Mears taking the ball round him, oblique to the box, he drilled a pass at Paterson, who swivelled to poke the ball across goal and beyond Myhill for the equaliser. Ugh, 1-1.

Burnley were now well into a game they should have been well out of, given City’s earlier chances, and were passing the ball about with gay abandon as we watched aghast.

Altidore, a handful for much of the half, became noticeably subdued after picking up a needless booking for angrily booting the ball out of touch having been adjudged to have fouled his marker. Silly, Jozy, silly. We needed this half to end so we could regroup.

“Man management is about getting the intrinsic motivation right“ said Dowie in the Mail, and he had 15 minutes to get it right after it was wrong for the last thirty minutes of the first forty-five.

There are some players who always seem motivated, but are hampered by their technical limitations. George Boateng was downright heroic today, he‘s always willing to put his body on the line and was doing it again today, a week after being concussed and stretchered off the field at Stoke.

Jozy Altidore has come on leaps and bounds and works hard, but is yet to fully master anticipation and instinctive finishing after beating a man. Fagan is always scurrying about like an amphetamine addled gnat, but he can’t go past a man, can’t cross consistently well and is no finisher, Then there is Paul McShane, much maligned in the stands but a tireless grafter.

Contrast those with our players who have genuine ability, none more so than Jimmy Bullard, who is doing little for his £40,000 a week at this time. Sure, if you watch just highlights of this game you’ll see a lot of Bullard shooting when the ball falls to him, but few watching the game in person can say he really worked hard in this game.

He was uncommitted, a shadow of his November self, hitting half arsed and inaccurate passes and fannying out of tackles. He looks like a man already resigned to leaving and not the all action, decisive pass spraying talisman we’re paying him to be. Bernard Mendy is another who looks disinterested and waiting till he can move on, last year he was erratic, but when he could be arsed he was magical, today he was a costly sloth, and had a huge hand in putting this game out of reach.

I doubt any long term fans thought we’d remain a Premier League club for years and years, most are realistic enough to get that relegation is an occupation hazard for a club of our stature, and that’s fair enough. What’s hard to stomach though is a lack of fight and determination. If we go down fighting, then que sera sera, but to have players not care is downright infuriating, and understandably, tempers were fraying in the stands as this game wore on, with several fans in the East taking their frustrations out on each other with their fists.

A quick summary of the second half because it’s too painful to document in detail, it feels like identifying the remains of a mangled, barely recognisable loved one in a morgue.

Andy Dawson gamely went in for a 30-70 challenge after Kilbane’s pass sold him pitifully short, and inevitably did himself in, leading to the full back being stretchered off. Dowie’s choice of replacement was bewildering, he sent on Nick Barmby, who is no longer raging against the fading of the light, he’s just raging, as the light has gone out.

In a fit of pique, Mendy ran through an opponent he felt had wronged him moments earlier. From the first free kick, Fagan was shown a yellow card for in the opinion of the linesman, not being ten yards away when he blocked the cross, from the retake it was swung into the box where the bandaged and numberless shirted Duff (who in the first half clashed heads with colleague Leon Cort) sought to control, turn and shoot, however Sonko slid in and poked the ball away, with Duff jumping out of the way or diving depending on your perspective. Boateng just behind Duff pulled out of a challenge and made no contact with the man, but with Duff falling, apparently sandwiched by tackles in the ref’s view, a penalty was awarded.

Alexander, somewhat of a penalty expert, sent Myhill the wrong way, driving the ball low into the bottom right corner. Disaster, just over an hour gone and City, bereft of ideas and widespread effort, capitulated.

Five minutes or so after the first we gave another penalty away, those in the West Stand insist Nugent used his hand to control the ball before his run on goal, maybe so, but there is little to excuse the easy path he had into the box after that, skipping past two feeble challenges (one from Sonko) before Mendy, rather than force Nugent away from goal (the Frenchman has pace remember) performed a sort of slow motion rugby tackle and hauled the Burnley man back.

A second Alexander spot kick was expertly dispatched, same way as before but high into the roof of the net with Myhill diving left, and that was that, we’re  simply not getting back into this now.

Time for further humiliation though. Late in the game, Wade Elliott crisply curled a free kick over a visibly dispirited Bo’s reach for a fourth to allow Burnley to leapfrog us in the table on goal difference, and the game ended, with heartfelt boos resonating around the ground.

Even with five games to go, it feels over, like you might as well add (R) after Hull City in the league table, because if you can’t beat a side such as Burnley, who until today looked an already down and broken club, then who are you going to beat? Those who preach ‘keep the faith’, what is your faith in?

Is it in the hard working players who aren’t up to it? Is it in the highly paid, low on effort flair players such as Bullard and Geovanni (who came on as sub. After 67 minutes) who don’t appear willing to use their talents to save us? Is it on a manager who regardless of admirable intent, doesn’t appear to be able to coax the endeavour needed out of players or have a grasp of who he should and shouldn’t be fielding?

Dowie added in the Mail piece; “If you try to improve someone and it works, you have done your job. If it doesn’t, you have still done the right thing by trying. I would rather be damned for doing than damned for not.” On this evidence Dowie will be damned for doing.

Some revisionists are claiming Phil Brown would have done better but these are his players who are failing to perform when it really matters, just as they did for him. Brown was no saviour when we stayed up last season, there was no late run of form, indeed when senior players were asking for extra training before vital games this time last year Brown was more interested in going to the horse racing.

The players, his players, who limped over the finish line last year are falling at every hurdle this time round. Regardless of who picks the side though, the blame must be apportioned to the players, who just don’t seem to care enough or be good enough.

City are going gently into the night and faith alone won’t see us through, we need works, and with five games remaining, there is, infuriatingly, soul-devastatingly little to believe in.