ICF's Hull Match Report

[It's Character Forming 1,160]

First away game of the season and a contrast to the sunshine on the way to last year''s dreadful opener at Fulham, overnight we had thunder and lightning with the threat of rain during the game. As I took the family to the Deep to drop them off and head on to the game it was cloudy and we came through heavy rain but it brightened up and turned humid as i walked to the stadium and caught a handy bus going direct to the stadium.

So with the disappointing injury to Elliott Bennet our lineup was :

Ruddy Whittaker Turner R Martin and Garrido at the back.

Midfield Fer Johnson Tettey and Howson and Redmond on the wings.

RVW up front.

Against us Hull had added a couple of good signings and my feeling on the "best time to play them" debate was that we''d need to get at them to take advantage of any failure to adapt to the Prem otherwise it could be an uncomfortable afternoon with them still confident after winning promotion.

At the start Hull had some possession but created little and we started to come into the game with some quick movement leading to a cross and a header just wide, soon after Redmond was given too much space just outside the box and hit a strong shot which the goalie comfortably saved. At about 15 mins in we were looking comfortable but started to ease of and when we gave possession away cheaply the ball broke kindly for Livermore on a one two but fortunately he hit his shot well over,

Soon after Redmond was out of possession and Hull hit a cross from deep on their left, Turner''s man had got in front of him and Turner held him down firmly with both hands - no surprise the ref gave a pen. Ruddy went the wrong way and we''d inflicted that wound ourselves,

Hull started to play better but soon after we had a corner where (from our view at the opposite end) Turner seemed to be bundled over. The ref gave nothing and a melee of players formed. The red card came out and we were confused. A hull player was walking off but was BJ going off too? At last it was clear that it was only a hull player and we had minor cause for celebration.

The rest of the half as you''d expect Hull sat back but we laboured to get the ball to RVW and only produced a few chances. Hull we getting better at dealing with Redmond and Howson was struggling to do much on the right. For the Huddlestone was getting too much time on the ball for my liking and also doing much to break up our attacks. So 1-0 down at the half.

Snoddy came on and instantly we looked better, passing the ball from wing to wing. It was defence against attack for 25 mins but we created painfully few chances. Redmond was drifting inside and looking ineffective. RVW had one header that the keeper did well to save but we simply didn''t get the ball to him enough. I lost count of the number of times he was pointing where he wanted the ball but was ignored. Our other players need to learn they can give him the ball to feet in tight areas and he will make something of it,

Elmander was brought on with 60 mins gone and later Wes was brought on for Redmond on the left and both made a short term difference but as time ticked on you could see hull believe they could get the win and we began to lose our shape. Up front it was showing that our attacking players haven''t much experience playing together. You couldn''t help thinking we were short of a leader on the pitch going forward and wishing it could have been Holt coming on. A few heads went down towards the end.

So at the death Hull were comfortably running down the clock and even ventured into our penalty area once or twice.

An utterly frustrating day. We gave away a stupid pen and were unable to put together enough good moves going forward so never looked likely to score. Ok we have players missing and Snoddy was clearly not 100% but we should have had enough quality to win this one.

[Kingston Yellow 220]

Bump. A good report.

[Scooby 0]

Quote: Snoddy came on and instantly we looked better, passing the ball from wing to wing.

Just about sums it up really doesn''t it?

We''re good at that aren''t we, it''s just passing it to the striker in the box that lets us down.