level.
It claimed to be Hull City versus Tottenham Hotspur in the Premier League but it looked more like the aforementioned Scottish League One clash – that’s the third tier of awful North of the border football.
Timmy versus Steve Bruce in a game which summed up both of them as hit and hope, ineptness won out on a game which featured after Cardiff against Norwich on Match of the Day which sums up how bad it was.
There’ll be some stats coming soon the bust the myth of Timmy the great entertainer, a myth his fanboys have swallowed hook, line and sinker, with help from the media and the likes of Bruce, who prefers having Tim in charge of Spurs rather than Andre.
A combination of basic English footballers xenophobia – see also ex-players now in the commentary booth – combined with the knowledge that it should be easier to get a result against a side Tim sends out, clueless, and then runs into the ground than one Andre had a plan with. That’ll just be plan A because everyone knows AVB didn’t have a plan B but at least he had that initial plan, something Timmy seems to have dispensed with.
Of course Bruce shares with Timmy the fact that it’s only because they played for a Championship winning side that they have jobs. It’s got nothing to do with their abilities.
As some screamed for Spurs to string three passes together, others wonder why expectations were so high, maybe they should start with easier targets, two or why not just one pass to another player in baby blue.
From the very start Spurs looked neither interested nor capable. It was no surprise and very fitting when a long ball caught the back four out and Hull opened the scoring. Bouncing around while the baby blue’s stood and watched, Long slammed in the opener. As Walker again tried everything could do not to have to play the ball. “I know, I’ll run the other side of him and have a quick try at grabbing his arm, that’ll do it.”
So we had the long balls to go with running rings around Timmy’s central pairing. A matching 4-4-2 with the statuesque Tim Huddlestone in Hull’s middle were running rings around Bentaleb and Paulinho. It had fun afternoon written all over it.
Second half saw some pressure from Spurs but it was clueless pressure. Hit and hope pressure and it was only ever going to take either a piece of luck or a bit of individual brilliance to get the baby blues back into it.
The luck came from an awful attempt from 40 plus yards out by Rose. The individual brilliance came when Paulinho control the inept shot instantly and in the next instant turned and fired in the equaliser.
Usually AVB’s sides sat back after going in front – yes it was frustrating – but here Timmy’s decided the equaliser was enough and it was all Hull. Also during AVB’s stint the substitutions were very frequently head scratchers – yes it was frustrating – here it was even more bizarre as nothing was coming from Timmy change wise.
With Hull again running around the midfield, Bentaleb was looking lost, while Paulinho was looking like a player who had missed a few weeks. As was Vertonghen who had been out since before AVB was sacked and yet both played the full 90 minutes. Yet the only change came in the final minute of normal time and was forced as Adebayor limped off.
As again stats later will show Timmy hit a lucky streak in the fixture list, Hull with no points in their last 4 league games this was very much another one. Yes Steve Bruce was right this was totally a different team than the one under AVB. But unlike Bruce anyone with a brain shouldn’t think that’s a good thing.