WEST BROM 0, HULL CITY 3
Brown's boys rising up to the challenge of their rivals
FORGET Fergie, Wenger, Big Phil or Rafa. They should hand the manager of the season award to Phil Brown right now.
The Hull City chief’s achievement in taking his team to joint top of the table after nine games deserves the ultimate praise and accolade.
Brown’s remarkable journey is THE success story of this season, with three quarters still remaining.
Since taking over in January 2007 when Hull were in the bottom three of the Championship, he has ridden on an upward wave which can surely get no higher. Or can it?
Summit
In their own world of make-believe, the Tigers can prove that anything is possible.
Brown talked about his team showing Champions League form in their stupendous start to the campaign.
Yet reality kicked in when he rightly added: “But form is only temporary.”
Not for him, though, any discussion of securing enough points to ensure they stay in the division. He is looking much higher than that.
Brown contained his excitement at drawing alongside Chelsea and Liverpool at the Premier League summit to admit: “If you get 20 points from nine games you are bound to be somewhere near the top of the league.
“Now we’ve earned the right to give a good account of ourselves rather than everyone classing us as whipping boys.
“I don’t see 20 points as being halfway towards survival. It is just a statistic along the way.
“We have our away days when we take the players for a chinwag and look at the past and the future and see what we can learn from it. If we carry on like this we will finish at the right end of the table but we won’t get carried away.
“We rode our luck in the first half, certainly the first 15 minutes when we were nowhere near our usual tempo, workrate or passing ability.
“It left us with an uphill task. It was definitely a half-time team talk which meant something to the players. The forwards will get all the headlines but I am ecstatic that we kept our third straight clean sheet.”
Wasteful
The first quarter-season has been an adventure for the Tigers — not a daunting task to be feared nor an exercise in self-preservation.
The Tigers arrived at The Hawthorns with the same urge to express themselves and attack their opponents that brought them successive victories over Arsenal, Tottenham and West Ham.
They came to attack and did so with what was essentially a 4-3-3 formation — Geovanni providing constant support to Daniel Cousin and Marlon King.
Hull’s first-half display was a softening-up process.
Skipper Ian Ashbee shot wide when well placed from Dean Marney’s corner and Kamil Zayatte was similarly wasteful from another.
After that, Brown’s team were slick and quick on the counter-attack, and ruthlessly efficient in defence.
They were also prepared to ride their luck, notably when Jonas Olsson headed against the Hull bar after James Morrison’s shot was pushed out by Boaz Myhill.
The Hull keeper later made a superb save from Ishmael Miller.
But a half-time dressing down by Brown was sufficient to bring a big improvement from his team and they swept Albion aside with three goals in the space of 20 minutes.
The hosts’ vulnerability at set-pieces was exposed in the first half and punished in the second.
After Scott Carson had saved brilliantly to keep out a deflected shot from Geovanni, Marney’s corner was met superbly on the volley by an unmarked Zayatte, who crashed it into the net just two minutes after the break.
The irrepressible Geovanni was the biggest headache for the Baggies, who never knew where he was going to appear as he attacked from his deep role.
The Brazilian headed Hull’s second on 62 minutes from King’s cross from the right with an effort that squeezed under the body of Carson.
Problems
King, a powerful weapon in a twin-headed partnership with Cousin, deserved to get on the scoresheet and he did so four minutes later.
The Jamaican international drove in a lethal cross-cum-shot after Gianni Zuiverloon had made a mess of a headed clearance.
Poor West Brom did not know what had hit them.
They had been just as enterprising as the visitors without ever getting close enough to Myhill’s goal to cause him too many problems.
Tony Mowbray’s newly promoted side are not Premier League whipping boys either and look just as capable as Hull of avoiding a relegation dogfight.
Manager Mowbray did not think there was much to choose between the two teams, even though the league table would suggest a gulf is opening up.
Mowbray said: “If you look past the result there were a lot of positives for us.
“Our passing was very good but all everyone is interested in is the result. That is the brutality of the game and we accept that.
“We have to be more clinical. We can’t keep missing chances.
“Good luck to Hull. They are a hard-working, honest team, I would suggest.”
Faint praise indeed.
But Hull will not be bothered about such a downbeat appraisal of their style.
“We’re going to win the league,” sang their fans throughout the second half.
They won’t — but they deserve the chance to dream.
This article has 2 comments
I work at the Hawthorns and I must say congratulations Hull, we should habe beaten you though as Miller had enough chances to put the game to bed but he cant shoot to save his life.
Your fans were fantastic and so were you ... so fair play and show them big 4 there not supreme
By Baggie Boy. Posted octubre 26 2008 at 2:05 PM.
Well done Hull City; The club are providing a really refreshing new dimension on the premier league this season.
Hull City are not a 'big time' club dealing in hundreds of millions of pounds paying sky high wages; They are a very modest, hard - working club who owe nobody fianance - wise.
The high profile critics who wrote Hull City off should be back - tracking right now and throwing their influence and weight behind a club which are only going to go from strength to strength.
By James. Posted octubre 26 2008 at 10:44 AM.