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:


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