Hughes fails to see the funny side
Manchester City 1
Hull City 1
Sunday November 29 2009
Seven games, seven draws, and again Manchester City's performance left much to be desired. It remains to be seen how long the sheikh will tolerate such a disappointing return on his eye-watering investment. The fans are already losing patience, and booed their team off at the final whistle.
To nobody's surprise, City were the better team, and had the initiative throughout, but yet again they were unable to translate possession and chances into goals, and suffered for it when Jimmy Bullard celebrated his return to Hull's starting line-up with an 80th-minute equaliser from the penalty spot.
Mark Hughes, under mounting pressure, looked greyer than ever at the end. In mitigation, Hull have been transformed from a relegation ragbag into hard-grafting competitors over the past month, and they were impressively combative from the first minute to the last. Their manager, Phil Brown, would appear to have survived his personal crisis, which had its roots in that injudicious half-time rant at his players on the pitch in the corresponding fixture last season.
After that, Brown was deemed to have "lost the dressing room", in phone-in parlance, and Hull won just one of their last 22 league games, finishing within a point of relegation.
After an ominous start, Brown seems to have turned things around in the nick of time, and the Tigers are scrapping in tooth-and-claw fashion, which augurs well for their battle to stay up.
City have altogether loftier ambitions, of course, but seven points from as many matches is scarcely top-four form, and with such an array of attacking talent at their disposal they should be demolishing, not dropping points against, bottom-half opposition.
Their goal came in added time at the end of the first half when Shaun Wright-Phillips, set up by Carlos Tevez, let fly from 20 yards and Anthony Gardner's maladroit attempt at a headed clearance took the ball beyond Matt Duke's reach at his left-hand post. Hull would have been level within two minutes of the resumption, but for the goal-line clearance with which Joleon Lescott repelled Richard Garcia's shot from the right, with Shay Given beaten.
Their indefatigable spirit was finally rewarded when Lescott fouled Jan Vennegoor of Hesselink and Bullard beat Given from the spot.
Bullard then reaffirmed his reputation as a joker by proceeding to mock Brown's infamous on-the-pitch team-talk at the same ground last season in a goal celebration that was nothing if not original. Thankfully, for Bullard, his manager saw the funny side of it all.
"It was a fantastic celebration," said Brown. "Great comedy is about timing. You could not have had a celebration like that, after a goal, unless it was at Eastlands and was in the goal in front of the Hull fans. The whole thing was timed to perfection."
Hughes could do with some of that same spirit as City's big-money squad failed once again, this time in front of chairman Khaldoon al-Mubarak. The Blues have still only lost once this term but their failure to win since late September will lead to questions being asked of a squad that had £120m spent on it last summer alone.
Hughes did have some justification for his grumbles though. After referee Lee Probert's application of the advantage law had resulted in Wright-Phillips' deflected effort putting City in front, Hughes was left cursing at the penalty award for a foul by skipper Kolo Toure on Vennegoor of Hesselink.
"My initial reaction was that it was for handball against Joleon Lescott but it certainly wasn't because it didn't touch him, other than just grazing the top of his thigh," said Hughes.
"Now the referee is saying he gave it for the challenge in the box. I would debate that as well. It was just a coming together. In my opinion, the penalty should not have been given."
- Joe Lovejoy at Eastlands
Originally published in
