Once again it is another loss away from home and we are slowly starting to sink down the table. Nothing changed after our home defeat on Tuesday, against Stoke, and Arveladze has some work to do.
The squad today changed from our last game with new signings – Pelkas and Vale – getting their first start and a different formation was put in place. I do not know why Shota never starts with our new signings as they do make a huge difference to the team.
In the first half, we were able to get the ball back well; however, we were unable to attack effectively, and we ended up getting it taken back off us. When we try attack, nobody is making runs or asking for the ball that is why we end up stopping and passing back to the defence. Cleary, we are scared to push up and we never go through the pitch we always go to the sides and end up getting trapped or giving the ball away for a throw in.
Against every team we play, we never put pressure on their defence, and we never make tackles and that is why we concede a lot because they have lots of time to run with the ball and make a successful pass to the right player who is in on goal. Keeping the ball is another major issue for us because we pass from defender to defender instead of the defender looking and seeing what striker (or midfielder) is open to pass to. Real Madrid is a prime example of this kind of play, as they are always passing the ball around and – eventually – they can end up scoring. For example, in their game against Celtic they were able to make thirty-three consecutive passes and produce a goal. If City want to play that kind of game, then they need to learn from Real Madrid.
We had two shots in the first half, one on target, and our goalkeeper – Baxter - saved us from going at least three nil down.
The second half was dreadful, how can we go from having a chance at scoring to getting three put by us? This was because of our atrocious defending and our lack of communication.
We started with the same team as the first half, but our defence started to drop off and we were letting Swansea attack more and have more opportunities, which ended up giving them lots of confidence. We had a fair share of possession, but we could not do anything with it, just like Tuesday night against Stoke. After fifteen minutes of City keeping possession and not even having a chance, Swansea got bored and ended up taking the ball off us and created a chance of their own, which ended up with them going one goal up. That was some of the poorest defending I have ever seen from Hull; nobody was marking, and they just let Swansea have so much space near the back post.
Immediately after this goal, Swansea was again on the attack and as I was watching it looked as if Figueiredo had it covered until he touched the ball with the bottom of his foot and left it for Baxter to pick up which ended up in confusion and that is when the Swansea attacker came from behind, snatched the ball and slotted it into the net. We were two nil down in the space of three minutes. This season our defence has been weak, and it has been broken by many teams. We are yet to win with a clean sheet, and this is due to Hull getting under pressure when we go two or three nil up, I do not like it when they do that because they end up conceding goals and making the game harder for them (also for the fans watching, like me).
However, when we concede first, we can never come back and we do not lose by one goal, we lose by two or three like we have for the last four games. After that first and second goals go in that is it, we start to turn off. That was the case in this game, instead of trying to get a goal back we conceded another goal that was the most ridiculous goal of the game. Our defender tried to make a pass, but he passed it to a Swansea player instead of a city player who made it three nil. At this point I felt bad for the Hull fans who got up at three in the morning to go and watch that garbage.
The defenders – except from Elder – were the players that let us down today and I hope they do not play the same players’ next game. We really are struggling with options now as we have many players still out injured and Shota needs to find out what his starting eleven are. My squad would be Baxter (in goal), Christie, McLoughlin, Coyle, Elder (in defence), Woods, Tufan, Seri (in midfield) Pelkas, Estupinan and Vale (up front). This will change when everyone is back from injury, and I know most players from today’s game are in my starting eleven, but a couple small changes can make a difference.
We have just under two weeks to sort this out and hopefully I can write about a win instead of a loss again. Our next game is Luton at home.