Manchester City, complete with ludicrous scarves, wronged full backs and amusing desperation to be regarded as a member of the Premier League elite, visit the Circle tomorrow as City aim for a third consecutive home game without defeat.

Phil Brown has little reason to change the Hull City starting XI for the game after the riproaring display against Chelsea in midweek, which means Kamil Zayatte may have to play second fiddle to the in-form Steven Mouyokolo for a central defensive spot again. If a change is made, it will most likely involve Amr Zaki making his full debut up front in place of Jan Vennegoor of Hesselink.

Geovanni is missing the chance to face his old club thanks to a medial ligament strain and so attacking options from the bench will be a little more limited. Seyi Olofinjana has returned after a month of watching the Africa Cup of Nations but any lack of match practice will probably not prevent him from being named among the subs.

Wayne Bridge is expected to return from injury for the visitors, leading to an interesting scenario as to what E1 to E6 will sing his way, given the barrage of critical sonnets bellowed towards John Terry in midweek. One suspects that savaging Terry in tuneless manner should not make one assume that they will be sympathetic towards Bridge. Especially when he takes a throw-in or tackles Craig Fagan right in front of them.

Kamil Zayatte should be fit to return to the Hull City defence tonight as the Tigers take on Premier League favourites Chelsea at the Circle in a game rearranged from the snowbound first fortnight of 2010.

It would be harsh on Steven Mouyokolo, who claimed the ‘accolade’ of least unimpressive defender in the wasteful 2-2 draw with Wolves three days ago, but ultimately Phil Brown is unlikely to drop his calamitous captain Anthony Gardner and yet still needs Zayatte to return. It says a lot when Zayatte, very talented but with a capacity to go utterly hatstand, is now regarded as the more secure of the back pairing.

Elsewhere, it would be a harsh manager who drops Tom Cairney after a resourceful debut against Wolves but there may be a need to stuff the midfield with more bite against considerably more gifted opposition, unless Brown chooses to drop one of Jozy Altidore or Jan Vennegoor of Hesselink up front and go for 4-5-1, which would maintain Cairney’s spot. If he does this, expect the unlucky half of a promising strike duo to be immeasurably indignant, and fear for his cat when he gets home. Then there’s Amr Zaki, bright as a sub on Saturday but evidently not match fit.

So we don’t know, really.

City haven’t won since doing over Everton in the last midweek fixture to be played at the KC, as if that could act as any kind of omen. They haven’t beaten Chelsea since 1988-89 and have lost heavily on numerous occasions at home in the last two decades against the west Londoners in Cups and, last season, in the Premier League. Chelsea have, however, been occasionally susceptible against lesser opposition on their travels this season and anything resembling hope the Tigers can cling on to would be more than welcome.

Keep an ear out for some baiting of a certain armband-wearing defender, too, and feel free to condemn such action and not join in. Oh yes.

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.
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It’s almost three weeks since Hull City last played a Premier League match, and this yawning chasm of inactivity comes to a halt with a particularly tricky trip to Tottenham this afternoon.

Spurs trounced an underprepared Tigers side at the KC in August with probably the finest exhibition of football the stadium has seen, but have proved in recent times they are still capable of self-destruction, with a defeat at White Hart Lane to Stoke probably the main hope on to which Phil Brown’s men have to latch.

Brown is without three central midfielders and one striker thanks to bad knees and secondment in Angola, though second generation Haitian Jozy Altidore’s supposed compassionate leave after the huge earthquake in his ancestral home has been thrown into doubt with the player saying on his own Twitter account (yes, that again…) that he was looking forward to the match and would wear “both his wristbands” in tribute to those who died.

It’s more pleasing to see Stephen Hunt and Kamil Zayatte still in the squad after much speculation about their futures within a club desperate for cash, while the returning Dean Marney will join Anthony Gardner and Nick Barmby in another worthy but maybe futile attempt to show their old club what they are missing. Paul McShane is also fit again to return to the defence.

Tottenham are without the perma-crocked centre back pairing of Ledley King and Jonathan Woodgate, while chief dangerman Aaron Lennon is also injured – something which will mean Andy Dawson has had his best pre-match kip in a while.

Got a train to catch, meh.

City kick off the new decade with their second trip to Lancashire in under a week for their FA Cup Third Round tie against fellow Premier League side Wigan at the DW Stadium tomorrow.

As ever with Cup weekends, traditions abound. But where once there was giddy excitement, now we hear the ritual squawks about “preserving the tradition”, “retaining the magic”, and so on. It’s understandable to yearn for a lost age, when televised football was a novelty and there really was romance to the FA Challenge Cup. Then came Sky Sports and the Premier League, and now League positions take precedence.

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City started the 2000s in the Fourth Division, opening with a 0-0 draw at Leyton Orient in front of 5,169 at Brisbane Road. Seems aeons ago, doesn’t it? The 2010s are almost upon us now, but our final game of the decade takes us to Bolton tomorrow for a Premier League fixture of paramount importance.

The Tigers are now 19th despite two heartening displays against Arsenal and Manchester United. Results this afternoon mean we’re only a point adrift of 17th, though our goal difference – comfortably the division’s worst – is unlikely to prove anything other than a hindrance this season. Bolton are the team nearest to us, level on points though with two games in hand.

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So, we resign ourselves to a football-less Boxing Day, at the behest of Sky Sports. Of course, admission to the Premier League carries with it the need to accept fixtures being shifted for the benefit of television, but must this particular day be included in that? Evidently so. Thankfully the start of the Second Test will keep the cricketing fraternity happy, and there’s other live sport aplenty, but December 26th without City feels very odd.

Ho hum. A shame too, because the visit of Manchester United is naturally one of the matches that a new fixture list is scanned for, and a visit from the Champions on Boxing Day would have been a treat. It’s also troubling on another level: by the end of today City could be in the bottom three, a less-than-ideal situation in which to face Alex Ferguson’s charges.

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We won there last season and became, briefly, the Premier League’s darlings. Arsenal won’t have forgotten that in a hurry.

They also won’t have forgotten that it took spellbinding incompetence from a referee to allow them to beat us in the FA Cup quarter finals.

Arsenal will, of course, be runaway favourites to win at the Emirates tomorrow. But they’ve already moaned about fixture congestion this week while brazenly pointing out the ‘free week’ that Hull City has had. They seem worried. Heh.

Nothing to lose, everything to gain. And the ESPN-subscribing public – all four of them – will be watching too.

Phil Brown could pick Jozy Altidore to start, and Seyi Olofinjana could return to the midfield. Or he might not.

Meanwhile, with exquisite timing, Daniel Cousin’s name seems to be back in the first team picture too, though conflicting reports of the Gabonese striker’s recovery from ankle and/or shoulder trouble suggests neither are true, and Brown has just realised that maintaining a feud with the player who scored the winner against the Gunners last season is pointless when there is the opportunity to repeat the act and maybe get a few extra quid for him in January in the process.

Defensive troubles dominate Phil Brown’s thinking ahead of the visit of his old mucker Sam Allardyce and his Blackburn Rovers side to the KC Stadium tomorrow.

Left back Andy Dawson and central defender Anthony Gardner picked up thigh and knee injuries respectively during the defeat at Aston Villa last week and have not trained at all.

A ready-made replacement for Dawson awaits in the shape of Kevin Kilbane, a change which many feel is overdue even without an injury to Dawson, but replacing Gardner will be more tricky, with the raw duo of Liam Cooper and Steven Mouyokolo and unconvincing (and almost entirely forgotten) loanee Ibrahima Sonko the only obvious candidates. If Dawson makes it, Kilbane could also slot into the centre.

Of course, there is also a gap, nay a yawning chasm, a crevice of immeasurable girth, to fill to in Jimmy Bullard’s absence, though Brown is likely to revert back to 4-4-2 and choose Geovanni up front, leaving Dean Marney and George Boateng as the midfield pairing. However, Seyi Olofinjana is available after hamstring trouble and, given his last City game was his scoring appearance against Stoke City, may be seen as ideal to freshen up the central midfield. And Brown has even mentioned Tom Cairney this week, whose debut in the Premier League is long overdue, though his best hope is  still probably the bench.

Finally, one hopes and prays that Brown has noticed Matt Duke’s incompetence of late and restores Boaz Myhill, who regained his fitness ages ago, to the position of goalkeeper.

This is a very winnable game for City, and the emphasis on that cannot be underestimated given that four of the subsequent five Premier League matches are essentially no-brainers against Arsenal, Manchester United, Chelsea and Tottenham Hotspur. Therefore, three points against a side who won 2-1 at the Circle in depressing circumstances last season would be both welcome and crucial.

Phil Brown will probably see no reason to change his starting line-up as City look to dent another team’s ambitions of a Champions League place with a trip to Villa Park.

The Tigers performed heroically to earn a draw at Manchester City a week ago and will fancy their chances of at least equalling that feat against a Villa side who have been castigated as boring and one-dimensional this season.

That said, the likes of James Milner and Gabriel Agbonlahor will pose problems for any opponent on their day and the Tigers will need to remain strong in defence. If a change is to be made, it may come up front with both Craig Fagan and Jan Vennegoor of Hesselink challenging the hardworking but still goal-free American youngster Jozy Altidore.

George Boateng is another option to begin the game as a spoiling midfielder against one of his old clubs, providing a little more of a screen for Premier League player of the month Jimmy Bullard, but it is hard to argue against the case for all eleven players who started at Eastlands to get another go.

City lost 1-0 at Villa Park towards the end of last season in a tight but ultimately unsatisfying game that is now only memorable for the season-ending injury suffered by club captain Ian Ashbee, who still has a few more months of recovery to go.