Things We Think We Think #173

1. What an unexpected result that was, and of course, a thoroughly welcome one. It shows the unpredictability of football that a team so on its knees, so bereft of belief and form, can go to the Premier League champions’ backyard, outplay them, lead them for most of the game and only not win because of a piece of set-piece mastery.

2. We genuinely don’t know whether to be grateful for the point or hacked off that we couldn’t hang on for another couple of minutes for all three. Are we greedy, ungrateful or just unambitious?

3. David Meyler’s goal was simple enough after some right scruffy approach play, with more cannons and ricochets than a game of indoor five-a-side, but for him it was a big moment. This is a player who isn’t always brilliant, but when he plays well, he galvanises the whole team, and a goal might just act as a personal fillip for him as some truly huge games that will dictate our Premier League future hove into view.

4. Isn’t there something reassuringly committed and robust about a Hull City defence when it contains Paul McShane and Alex Bruce? Welcome back chaps. Feel free to stick around, and tell your mate James to get fit quickly too.

5. Alex Bruce has emerged as one of the real winners from Saturday, and rightly so. There was more to his performance than just THAT tackle on Samir Nasri, as glorious as it was. Nonetheless, it shows how fine the margins can be; had the referee spotted his push in the area in the second half…

6. In its report on the game, the official website says “the Tigers held firm against a barrage of second half City attacks”. Seriously.

7. Aston Villa still can’t win but have just learned to score goals again, just in time for their visit to the KC on Tuesday night, where they have never lost a game nor conceded a goal. It simply cannot be stated vociferously enough that City need to be on their game and win the match, especially as we have a break next weekend. Imagine the contrasting moods for eleven long, football-free days if City win, or City lose.

8. Tempo is the key tomorrow. Instead of playing at the stodgy pace we see too often, City have to be fast, proactive and aggressive from the start. Don’t let Villa get comfortable. Relish home advantage. It suited us to slow things down at the Etihad, and we saw how they struggled to recover from a half-paced start. Let’s learn from that.

9. To those reading at City: you’re very welcome to borrow our Club Statement from last week when the FA says no again. Good advice seems pretty thin on the ground at City. There’s some for free. You’re welcome.

10. Nigel Pearson is staying at Leicester after all, while the world interprets footage of him in a ground clinch with James McArthur and decides whether it was playful or not. Leicester nearly used that incident as an excuse to get shut of him, and some may have felt he had it coming anyway, but nonetheless we admire the man, stick resolutely by our belief that he was A Very Good Thing to have at Hull City and feel that without him, our slide down the leagues could have been far greater. Plenty of City fans disagree with us, but we believe they only hear his monotone interviews and remember his expertly arranged defensive stance (which we’d have killed for at times this season) and, most of all, recall the manner of his departure (because he couldn’t bear the Allams, something that’s hardly a unique sensation among City fans) and castigate him for those things. The picture during the Pearson (N) era at the Circle was much, much bigger.

http://www.ambernectar.org/blog/2015/02/things-we-think-we-think-173/