Tigers 1 Hammers 0 - Referee Friend Receives Hull City's Man of the Match Award!

Well the penalty awarded to Hull in the first half was as soft as wet toilet paper but debateable if O'Brien did, indeed, stupidly shove Brady in the back, but the failure to award an equaliser penalty for the most obvious hand ball you will see this season was utterly inexplicable. Livermore clearly put his arm to ball and it rebounded off the point of his elbow. How the officials thought he had put the ball behind for a corner, given his body was nowhere near the ball, will remain a mystery. Although the suspicion is that Kevin was determined to be Hull's best Friend come what may!

Allardyce will do his nut, and with some justification, but that must not disguise his own crass stupidity. Once again we started with Maiga, and once again we looked utterly toothless. Time and again Mogadon failed to control the ball when it was played forward to him, and though he did, at long last, have a shot on target and also cleared the ball off his own line, he was woeful for the most part. Why he started, and why he stayed on for over 60 minutes, only Allardyce will know. Unless, of course, Petric is as crap as he looked after replacing Maiga!

But when Vaz Te came on, the game changed. He moved into space, he took on defenders, and he was hungry to get on the end of things. One freekick bent wide from outside the box and one overhead kick showed that he has more natural ability than both Petric and Maiga combined. It's time for Sam to swallow his pride and admit that he was wrong when trying to side line the man whose goal got us into the Prem.

And the introduction of Downing for Jarvis was also a factor in our second half improvement.

However, we are clutching at straws of comfort here. Yes we dominated the last 20 minutes, but we shouldn't forget that McGreggor didn't have to make a difficult save all game whereas Jussi made two impressive blocks and Livermore also hit the post. And we are talking Hull City here. Even Zola's West Ham could beat Hull City!

A crisis is unfolding. Allardyce will blame the officials and lament the fact that our best chance again fell to a defender, with Rat slicing the ball wide, but if you don't have a striker worthy of the name, how do expect chances to fall to somebody skilled at putting the ball in the net? Tomkins had a header cleared off the line, Rat sliced a chance wide, Rat set up Diame superbly, only for an air shot to follow and O'Brien delivered our best cross of the game. Doesn't say much for the offensive unit does it?

Player ratings: Jussi 7; O'Brien 4 (penalty award!), Tomkins 6, Reid 6, Rat 7; Noble 5; Nolan 6, Morrison 6, Diame 6, Jarvis 4; Maiga 3 Subs: Petric 2, Vaz Te 7, Downing 6