Can anyone remember the last time Hull City won a Premier League game? December 6th at home to Middlesbrough was the last time. Since then, they have been very much in freefall.  When Hull first arrived in the Premiership, they were tipped to go straight back down but decided to tear up the script and go to well established top flight sides like Arsenal, Tottenham and Newcastle United and win. How dare they!

 Since then however, Hull have had a bit of a reality check. Despite two very credible draws at Anfield and Stamford Bridge, a couple of resounding batterings from Manchester City and Sunderland, accompanied with some less humiliating defeats and the odd draw have seen Hull fall into thirteenth. By all means this is a respectable position but the worrying thing for Phil Brown’s side is that they are looking over their shoulder now, rather than towards the dizzy heights of Europe that their early season form suggested.

The run of form that they are in at the moment suggests only one thing; a relegation scrap. This is the last thing that they would have wanted or expected at the time of their last league win but have struggled to maintain the kind of form that shocked the world before Christmas. Credit to Brown, he acknowledged their slump and tried to shake things up by bringing in some new faces, most notably Manucho on loan from Manchester United (to replace the outgoing Marlon King) and record signing Jimmy Bullard from Fulham. The latter however seems to have backfired for the time being as Bullard required further surgery to his troublesome knee and is out for the remainder of the season having only made one substitute appearance for the Tigers.

A problem that is still rectifiable this season though is their home form. The KC Stadium has hardly been a fortress having picked up just three wins in the league there all season. Perhaps this is because it is a welcoming venue for travelling teams with nice facilities and doesn’t boast the most hostile of atmospheres. If a team is to avoid the drop, it is often their home form that will decide it. Stoke City are a good example of a side who are making the most of their home territory and in turn made themselves very difficult to beat there. Hull’s next three home games all come against sides who are in the relegation mix and the phrase ‘six pointer’ starts to take on some real meaning. Sunday’s match against a rejuvenated Blackburn Rovers is a crucial match and a win for Hull could spark a run that results in a comfortable finish to the season and doesn’t require the need for a positive result against Manchester United on the final day. Newcastle United and Portsmouth are the following home games for Hull while upcoming trips to Fulham, Wigan, Middlesbrough and Sunderland suggest that Hull should pick up enough points to survive.

Most neutrals would like to see Hull stay up, purely because of the way they shook things up in the opening weeks of the season and think it would be a waste to then throw it all away. Hull have achieved a lot in a short space of time and sending them back to the drawing board now would be harsh. However, you only stay up if you’re good enough and time will tell.

In the 2006/2007 season, Watford finished on bottom of the Premier League with 28 points. While it looks like it’ll be a while before Watford gets promoted from the Championship again given their current league form, the ghosts of Watford past are still alive and well in the Premier League today.

There were two players that showed a lot of promise during that 2006/2007 season for Watford, but who weren’t able to shine for several different reasons. Those players are Ashley Young, now with Aston Villa, and Marlon King, now at Hull City.

Watching the Watford side from a couple of years ago, you would have been hard pressed to predict that these players would go on to greatness. When Young joined Villa in January 2007, a lot of people thought the £9.6 million fee was excessive. Young, at the time, seemed very rough around the edges except for a few glimmers of skill here and there. He has since gone on to become an integral part of the Villa side and is one of the best left foot crossers in the league today.

Marlon King was less an unknown at the time after his success earlier in his career at Nottingham Forest. But King was only able to score four goals that season after being hampered by injuries. This season, King has already scored four crucial goals in the league and it’s only early December.

Watching Watford a couple of seasons ago, it was frustrating watching King play because he would get those rare chances in front of goal to knock the ball in but seemed to be lacking the skill or confidence to score. This season, King seems like a player reborn. Perhaps his maturity is allowing him to be more cool under pressure as he slots the ball into the back of the net.

So while many football fans will laugh at the memories of Watford from the 2006/2007 season, I look back and feel glad I was able to watch two players move up from the ranks within Watford on to greater glory.

I admit it. I have a soft spot for underdogs. Three years ago, I was enamored by Wigan’s brilliant beginning to the season where they surprised so many teams and fans by playing attacking football. Two years ago, it was Reading’s turn to brighten up the Premier League. Last season there was no underdog, but this year we have Hull City, the Yorkshire Terriers of the Premier League.

After watching Hull’s gutsy performance against Manchester City in the 2-2 draw, here are 9 reasons why it’s impossible to not to love Hull City:

1. They give 100% whenever they go in for 50/50 balls,
2. Midfielder and captain Ian Ashbee has been at Hull City for seven years,
3. Geovanni. Say no more,
4. Striker Marlon King has regained his form despite being kicked off the Jamaica team and written off by many pundits when he was at Watford two seasons ago,
5. The foreign contingent of Kamil Zayatte, Daniel Cousin and George Boateng have been spectacular,
6. Defenders Paul McShane, Michael Turner, Zayatte and Andy Dawson have been a rock for Hull City at the back,
7. Unsung heroes such as Boaz Myhill, Dean Marney and Samuel Ricketts have been a joy to watch,
8. Phil Brown looks like a Sam Allardyce in training, which is exactly what he is (in a good sense), and
9. Perhaps most importantly of all, the entire squad plays together so well as a team.

Hull City is everything a Premier League underdog should be. They’re battlers. They’re a joy to watch. The fans are exuberant. Their stadium is sold out. And the eleven players on the pitch never give up.

Phil Brown has instilled a winning belief in the Hull City side. They don’t play in fear of their opponents. How could you not love a team like Hull City?

So, how many people thought Hull City would be Premiership cannon fodder, this seasons Derby County, bravely battling against the odds in a futile struggle that would ultimately lead to relegation. If so, how many had actually seen Hull City play before they came up? Not many I bet. Fair enough, I’d only seen them half a dozen times last season but there was enough there for me to feel that they’d certainly do a lot better than Derby did last season and I was not surprised when they won the play off final in May.

That’s one of the main problems football coverage has in the UK, it’s so biased toward the Premiership that sometimes the pundits have no idea about any of the sides coming up from the Championship at all unless they’re a former Premiership club or recently relegated and returning straight back. This in turn leads to the standard pre-season prediction of the 3 promoted clubs going straight back down, or depending how well the pundit knows the manager or either they used to play or manage them, the lucky promoted side may be tipped to finish 17th. It’s all rubbish really, a bit of an old boys club, blinkered people unable to objectively look at a side properly without bias coming into play. The plucky little promoted sides then have to run the gauntlet of cliches, ignorance and condescending comments as they battle bravely on until being relegated in April or May.
Yet Hull City, like Reading and Ipswich Town before them have caught a lot of people by surprise, Brown has them playing a fairly expansive 4-1-2-1-2 formation which seems to be working so far, with Geovanni in the hole behind Cousin and King and it allows them push up into a 4-3-3 when attacking with the ball, Boateng moving forward to form a midfield trio. It is so refreshing to see a side who come up, sign footballers and want to play the game the right way.

That’s why they’ve got 21 points after 13 games, because they’ve gone out to try and win games rather go into a match not wanting to lose it. Mentally, it’s a massive difference to your mindset and makes you feel more positive about the task facing you. West Brom are struggling to score goals because the players they have don’t have the top level experience and it shows, Stoke City are doing OK but as soon as people work out how to negate their long ball game, then they too will struggle. Hull on the other hand have more quality in the squad, players who have played in the Premiership, La Liga, Le Championnat and it gives them more weapons at their disposal.

Of course, at the moment everything’s going well but Brown will be the first to admit that he needs a bit more experience and depth adding to his squad in January. The loss of the highly rated Fagan thanks to Danny Guthries obscene challenge hit them hard, but they’ve recovered and carried on picking up points but I saw some comments about  the fact they’d lost 3 games on the spin. Articles entitled ”The Bubbles Burst”, “Toothless Tigers” and “Hull’s Premiership Dream Start Over”, along with some ridiculous comments about Hull having been found out really got my back up.

Anyone who saw their last defeat, against Bolton Wanderers, will know exactly why they lost that game, an absolutely world class performance from the Premierships most underrated goalkeeper, Jussi Jaaskelainen, kept at least 3 or 4 goals out to nick the points for the Trotters. The other two defeats, against Chelsea and Manchester United hardly need defending, but to slate them for losing to those two sides? Absolute nonsense, if you’re lucky enough to support one of the big four, fine but if you don’t, just count up your recent results against them and see how well your side has done. At Old Trafford, they made Sir Alex a very nervous man indeed, pulling it round from 4-1 down to 4-3 and left with their pride intact. I think they were the first side to score 3 in a league match at Old Trafford since Chelsea in Mourinho’s first season, yet still the pundits pointed out the result and not the performance or opposition.

Unfortunately, yesterday Sky Sports fell into this very trap, saying it was a must win game after 3 defeats in a row in the game against Manchester City but then again, I don’t expect anything else from them these days so you learn to tune out the hype and dreadful punditry and focus on the game itself. When the commentating combination isn’t Gray and Tyler, then the same cliched ridden bores continue to offend the ears of all football fans with half a brain. 

The staff and players at Hull deserve a big pat on the back for dealing with the cliches and negativity so well and rubbing a few peoples noses in it. They’ve been a breath of fresh air all season, from their fantastic ground, the way they play football to the eloquent way Phil Brown discusses his side and football in general. Brown has surprised me, with how positive he wants to play the game, it’s fantastic to see a side want to win football matches away from home and do it in the right way. I thought he was taking a massive gamble with the front 3 he signed, but so far all 3 have been on fire, especially Geovanni who needs special attention to get him to kind of form that prompted Barcelona to shell out £10 million for him 7 years ago but Brown has certainly got a knack with him. Whatever he’s doing to get him playing so consistently well is another feather in the cap of the impressive Brown. 

Daniel Cousin and Marlon King are also delivering goals and performances, King showing his Watford form, rather than the performances he put in at Nottingham Forest and Cousin is beginning to show just why Roy Hodgson was so desperate to sign him in January. Add to that, the wily old head of George Boateng and Bernard Mendy adding some further quality and it becomes obvious why they’re doing so well.

They will need to add to the squad in January, especially to give them a bit more depth up front but with only 6 weeks until the transfer window re-opens, no doubt Brown will have his targets already lined up.  Of course, they may get pulled down the table but they’ve still got at least 10 winnable games to come and if they can get those points who knows where they may end up. If they finish top ten, then Brown deserves to be named Manager of the Year. Thank you Hull City, keep rubbing the pundits noses in it and good luck for the rest of the season.

• Arsenal’s 2-1 victory over Manchester United at the weekend was one of the games of the season so far and Arsene Wenger’s side proved a lot of people wrong. Not only did they show their outstanding technical ability but also grit, determination and heart to keep United at bay during the onslaught of the last 10 minutes. After 10 days where everything and everyone at the club was questioned, it now seems that 90 minutes on Saturday morning have changed everything. The crisis talk has gone and Arsenal are back in the title race. It’s amazing how the opinions of the press can seemingly change overnight and with one victory all the hysteria wiped away.

Cesc Fabregas summed it up in his post-match interview when he said: “Last week we were not rubbish as everyone said. That’s football, it changes quickly.” Saturday’s win was vital but it was only three points and they will need to play like that every week if they want to seriously challenge for the title.

It still doesn’t change the fact that they need to find a way to break down teams who get 10 men behind the ball and learn to overcome teams who get physical with them.

• West Brom have got off to their best start to a season in the Premier League, yet today when they look at the league table they will themselves right at the bottom. Tony Mowbray’s side’s style of football won a lot of admirers as they won promotion from the Championship last year and their slick passing saw them dubbed ‘Arsenal-Lite’. While such a comparison should be taken as a compliment, the reality is that they can also be accused of the same flaws as the Gunners. Only they don’t have players like Samir Nasri, Cesc Fabregas and Robin Van Persie to get them out of trouble.

Tony Mowbray’s team should be admired for trying to play good football but as everyone likes to point out to Arsene Wenger, you win no points for style. Stoke City have been labelled a long ball (throw) team but at the moment they look to have more of a chance of staying in the division than West Brom. Your first season in the Premier League should be all about survival. Once established you can look to develop a more refined philosophy. It is possible to merge to the two, as Hull have shown, but West Brom just don’t have the players. Roman Bednar might look mean but he won’t scare many Premiership defenders and while Borja Valero, Jonathan Greening and Robert Koren are all neat, tidy passers of the ball they lack someone who can break up play in the midfield and a commanding centre-back.

The upside for Mowbray is that the bottom half of the table is so tight that a couple of wins can lift you right out of trouble.

• Zlatan Ibrahimovic is a fine footballer and is capable producing moments of magic. He recently scored a superb back-heel volley against Bologna and it was not the first time he had scored such a goal, having struck a similar strike for Sweden against Italy at Euro 2004. On Saturday at the KC Stadium Marlon King went close to scoring a ‘Zlatan’ for Hull against Bolton. His improvised effort was as good if not better than the Swede’s and he was unlucky that it hit the bar and went over.

Had it gone in it would have been one of the goals of the season and while I’m not saying King is anywhere near as good as Ibrahimovic, his contribution to Hull’s great start to the season has gone largely un-noticed.

While Daniel Cousin and Geovanni have taken the headlines, King has been superb and must have left Steve Bruce scratching his head as to why King couldn’t perform like that for him. While at Watford Aidy Boothroyd said that he valued King at £60m, what he was trying to say was that the role he played for the team was priceless and I’m sure that Phil Brown is now thinking the same.

Before I write, I want to thank everyone for the turnout this weekend for the EPL Talk Chat. You honestly have no idea how happy it made me. Anyways enough of the gushing, back to the meat of this post.

Marlon King’s double was enough to see off Newcastle United 2-1.

I have to admit, I’m torn about what direction to take this particular article. Really this should be about how Hull City was able to take advantage of a club in crisis and get a win at St. James’ Park. Instead, I’m more focused on what happened in the stands to start the second half.

As the ‘Cockney Mafia Out’ banner circled the ground to start the second half, I actually got disgusted. Yes everyone in the world knows Newcastle United fans are not happy with Ashley at the helm and they sure as hell aren’t happy with how Kevin Keegan had to leave the club this time around. But to parade around with a sign is just disgraceful to those on the pitch trying their best to get a result for the club that you claim to support. To make this protest even more comical was the fact Ashley or Wise weren’t even there, and it was pretty obvious they weren’t going to be. Yes they didn’t take their venom out on the players, but if you’re focusing your time on taking it out on the board, can’t you argue fans are taking it out on the players by ignoring what they do on the field?

Look, if you want to protest to your club about what is going on there, it’s pretty simple. Don’t buy anymore merchandise. Protest outside the club, don’t show up. If you want to even sing songs of protest to the board, while I’m not thrilled with it, I can even understand that. But to draw attention to yourselves by circling the ground with a banner is about as low as it can go as far as I’m concerned.

What’s even sadder is this game was more or less a side show to the protests on offer at the ground. The game itself though wasn’t that great of a game. Newcastle United had the promising start, but couldn’t take advantage of their three best chances to score inside of half an hour. Then the penalty and I’ve gone back and forth on this one. The way I see it, Peter Halmosi came back into the tackle of Nicky Butt. From my vantage point, it shouldn’t have been a penalty, but I won’t fault Andre Marriner for awarding it. Marlon King did his job from the spot even though Given guessed correctly and Hull had their lead.

The start of the second half was pretty much more of the same for Newcastle. Create chances, but got caught out on one quality counter. Charles N’Zogbia should be taken to task for being caught so far out of position. Marlon King had plenty of space to run in and even with N’Zogbia tracking back, it was too late. King did well to keep composed on the ball and slot home far post.

Xisco I felt had a good game, and got his reward nine minutes from the ninety. It was simply clean up duty as Charles N’Zogbia found space through the traffic to go far post. Myhill dove for it and was simply not able to get up in time as Xisco did well to stay onside and finish.

The ending though has to leave a black eye on the fans who did come out. Danny Guthrie has to know better that you just can’t go in and attack the legs unprovoked. Hell he got away with one hack at Caleb Fagan’s legs, but to blatantly dive in with what appeared to me an intent to injure is a joke.

In the end, Hull City get three points and do the business in the strangest of environments. Newcastle United just have too many issues to deal with right now and while they have enough talent to stay away from true relegation hell, it’s going to be another long season of turmoil for them.

A Few Other Observations:
1) If Geremi is Newcastle United’s best crossing threat, that’s not a good thing.
2) Could Shola Ameobi have had a worse game? At the moment, he doesn’t even look league one standard, even if he is coming off an injury.
3) If Dean Windass doesn’t have a realistic chance weekly to come on, shouldn’t he be smart enough to just step aside and let those who are more able in? It their four matches this season, the only one he’s come on in was during a blowout.

I’ll be back tonight with a review of Stoke City taking on Everton.