Norwich City 1 Hull City 0: Top-level January win still eluding Hull City

AMID all the excitement last week of Hull City joining the league of big spenders by splashing £14m on a pair of strikers, two factors were overlooked by those expecting the arrival of Nikica Jelavic and Shane Long to reap an instant return.
Norwich City's Ricky van Wolfswinkel and Hull City's Curtis Davies battle for the ballNorwich City's Ricky van Wolfswinkel and Hull City's Curtis Davies battle for the ball
Norwich City's Ricky van Wolfswinkel and Hull City's Curtis Davies battle for the ball

Namely, the Tigers’ total inability to win a Premier League game in January and a tendency in recent years for the club’s record signings to make their debut in a defeat.

After Ryan Bennett’s late winner for Norwich City ensured 
Nikica Jelavic – fellow newcomer Long missed the trip to East Anglia with an ankle injury – suffered that familiar sinking feeling on his Hull bow, both those two unwelcome traits remain.

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Adding to the sense of frustration felt by the Hull camp as they flew back to Yorkshire on Saturday evening was that the winner had come from a set-piece and at a time when it seemed Steve Bruce’s men had done enough to grind out a valuable point.

Instead, the squad touched down at Humberside Airport on Saturday evening knowing that just five points separate them in 11th place from Cardiff City at the foot of the table.

It is a slender advantage and with a trip to fifth-bottom Crystal Palace next up a week tomorrow, the Tigers could surely pick no better moment to finally claim that elusive first top-flight win in the opening month of the year.

Alex Bruce, for one, is in no doubt as to the importance that the visit to Selhurst Park now holds in Hull’s season.

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“We are not safe, no,” said the Hull defender. “Definitely not. Any team from 10th downwards can still go down.

“There is only five points in it so for me to say we are safe would be very big-headed of me.

“We know it is not going to be easy, but if someone had said before the season started that we would be 10th and five points clear at this stage, I would have taken it.

“Having said that, Crystal Palace is now a big, big game. Just as Norwich was, to be honest. The clubs are really bunching up.”

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All the pre-match talk among the 1,500 or so Tigers fans who made the trip to East Anglia centred on the record-breaking week of transfer activity by their club.

Long’s absence, therefore, from the travelling party because of an injury the striker had sustained on his final appearance for West Brom came as a major disappointment.

That still left Jelavic and the £6.5m record buy – the fee paid to Everton will rise by a further £1m if Hull can stay up – almost delivered the perfect start to his Hull career.

Just 110 seconds had elapsed when, after neat approach play by Liam Rosenior and Robert Koren, Jelavic received the ball eight yards out after cleverly finding space inside the penalty area.

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He then drilled a low shot that had John Ruddy beaten but not the post; the ball clipped the outside of the upright before bouncing to safety. In the context of the game, it was a big moment.

“If that goes in, the afternoon could have been very different,” Alex Bruce said.

We will, of course, never know. But what is not in doubt is how a hamstring injury that forced James Chester out of the game on 15 minutes disrupted the visitors.

Steve Bruce’s response was to send on Manuel Figueroa and ditch his preferred wing-back formation for a 4-4-2 set-up.

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The switch suited Norwich, who for the rest of the half took control with former Leeds United winger Robert Snodgrass well to the fore.

The Scot brought the game’s first save of note from Allan McGregor with a swerving 25-yard effort, but it was his trickery out wide and his pin-point delivery that caused Hull the most problems.

Sebastien Bassong headed wide from one such inviting centre, and Ricky van Wolfswinkel should have done better than prod wide of a post after being found in the six-yard box.

Such profligacy was why Hull got to the interval on level terms despite having lost their way in midfield, something that prompted Bruce just before the break to revert to 3-5-2.

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It made the visitors more solid. What it could not do, though, was restore the creative edge that Hull had displayed in the opening exchanges of the first half.

As Norwich also started to lose their way despite the right-wing promptings of Snodgrass, it meant the game descended into a scrappy affair as the two teams cancelled each other out.

The Canaries did manage to muster a couple of snapshots on goal and a steady stream of dangerous crosses but these were invariably blocked by the excellent Liam Rosenior and Curtis Davies.

It meant that, as the game entered the final stages, a stalemate seemed certain.

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That was, however, until Bennett rose highest above the visitors’ defence to meet Snodgrass’s 87th-minute corner with a header that took a deflection off a Hull head before looping into the net.

Tom Huddlestone’s dismissal a couple of minutes later – the midfielder clattered Leroy Fer to earn himself a second booking of the afternoon from Howard Webb – then ensured there would be no way back for a club that has now lost seven of their 10 Premier League games in January.

If, by the end of this month, an eighth defeat in the opening month of the year has come to fruition then the Tigers really will be in danger of being dragged into a relegation battle.

Bennett’s late winner also ensured Jelavic joined Huddlestone, Jimmy Bullard, Caleb Folan and Dean Marney in losing on their debut as the club’s record signing.

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Alex Bruce said: “To concede like we did was a real sickener.

“As a defender, you sometimes get a feel for whether you are going to keep the opposition out and I did feel like that. I felt it was going to be our day. We had coped with everything but, unfortunately, it wasn’t to be and we must now look to Palace.”