Sunday, December 27, 2009

Hull City vs. Arsenal and Manchester United

Hull City can take plenty of positives from the Christmas period, despite conceding six goals in two games as they lost to Arsenal and Manchester United.

The latest loss, 3-1 at the hands of United at the KC stadium today, came after an impressive display from the East Yorkshire side.

Wayne Rooney scored the first goal for the visitors right at the end of the first half, and Craig Fagan levelled from the penalty spot on 60 minutes.

Hull then pushed forward hoping for a winner, but this opened up the game and led to Manchester United scoring twice on the break in the closing stages. United now close the gap to league leaders Chelsea to just two points.

In the first half Hull were galvanised by an impressive display from key players, notably Stephen Hunt, and had by far the better of the play with three clear chances.

Richard Garcia had a penalty appeal turned down, whereas Hunt went should have scored from close-range.

Had United defender Patrice Evra been sent off for a second bookable offence in the second half, which by rights he should have been, the result may have been very different.

Hull lost 3-0 to Arsenal at the Emirates on 19 December in part due to an ineffective formation.

Hull manager Phil Brown played a 4-5-1, no doubt hoping for a 0-0 draw away from home, but it proved largely ineffective at stifling Arsenal’s potent attack.

Once Hull gained possession of the ball, Fagan on his own up-front was the only outlet for an attack as the defensively-minded midfield struggled to move the ball quick enough to create space amongst themselves.

Despite the best efforts of Fagan haranguing the Arsenal defence, Hull could not retain possession in the middle of the park and gave Arsenal countless opportunities to mount an attack of their own.

In my opinion, they missed Jimmy Bullard.

His ability to thread passes in a compact midfield would have made the game a battle for the middle of the park rather than for the goalmouth.

In the game against Manchester United, Olofinjana and George Boateng again struggled to move the ball quickly in midfield, but with Jozy Altidore joining Fagan up-front this was less critical.

I believe that having two strikers up-front and a less crowded midfield might have given Hull a better chance against Arsenal in the same way - a view shared by pundit David Pleat.

Regardless of past performances however, should Hull manage to repeat their first half performance against Manchester United for the rest of the season, surviving relegation will certainly be possible.

I made the schoolboy error of forgetting my camera, so unfortunately I only have the following (unzoomed and rather poor) videos taken on my phone to show for it.

The KC stadium from the northwest corner:

A stereotypically quiet Emirates:


Here is a slightly better one, showing all the highlights:


Wednesday, December 16, 2009

Cities chosen for England's 2018 bid

The FA team in charge of England's 2018 Football World Cup bid have revealed the shortlist of venues that could hold games during the tournament should England be chosen as the host nation.

The biggest surprises were the inclusion of Stadium MK in Milton Keynes and Home Park in Plymouth.

Plymouth's inclusion is likely to be due to FIFA's rules over geographical spread, whereas Milton Keynes was noted by the bid team as being an important signal of Britain's modernity.

Lord Mahwinney, the selection panel Chairman, said: "We always made it clear we aspired to having a wider geographical spread. We have some world famous stadia and the world would not understand if we didn't put them in the bid. We felt we should have a sprinkling of tomorrow as well."

The list in full is as follows...

Wembley Stadium (London):

Emirates Stadium (London):


New White Hart Lane or the Olympic Stadium (London):


Villa Park (Birmingham):


Bristol City's New Ground (Bristol):


Elland Road (Leeds):


Anfield or New Anfield (Liverpool):



City of Manchester Stadium (Manchester):


Old Trafford (Manchester):


Stadium MK (Milton Keynes):


St James's Park (Newcastle):


Nottingham Forest's New Ground (Nottingham):

Home Park (Plymouth):

Hillsborough (Sheffield):


Sunderland (Stadium of Light):


The instances where an either/or option is given are as a result of the committee deciding to leave the decision open and to allow for future events. It is still unclear whether Tottenham and Liverpool's new grounds will be built in time for 2018, and the final decision on the use of the 2012 Olympic Stadium is not likely to be made until after the games.

Lord Mahwinney said the instances were due to differences between the World Cup bid team's timescale and the timescale set-out by the clubs and the London Olympic's officials.

Monday, December 7, 2009

World Football on Express Radio

Joe Curtis, Vinny Forrester and I present a show called World Football on Cardiff University's student radio station, Xpress Radio.

Click below to listen to the show that aired on Thursday 2 December:

World football 02.12 by andrewpapworth