***Official Hull v City match thread***

[Mase]

But he "exhausted" Zaba last year and he was fine all the way through the season! Not once did be look knackered in any of the last matches. He just powered through.

If he started dropping people who looked exhausted or were on the verge of it then Yaya would never get a game!!

[Cit.revenge]

But what a difference between Clichy and Zabba, Zabba always on attack always overlapping, good cross , Great defender top top full back, Clichy every fourth game is perfect in defense and that is it forward offer nothing and i blame him more for Mangala own goal then Mangala.Think we have two solid left back but Kolarov is more productive on hes day . One position where i do think we are average at best is goalie.... Willy nothing , Hart well we all knew world class on line , garbage out of line. thinking not hes best quality.

Clichy is crap mate! People still like to bring up the myth that he's put in there instead of Kolarov because he's better at defender when the truth is he's not and doesn't offer anything whatsoever going forward. It was Clichy's fault for their first 100% If he can't do the basics and not get skinned and cut out a cross we're always going to be in danger. I really don't know why Pellers fucks about so much in these matches swapping people.

I like Kolarov because hes the only player who has world class cross witch we saw against in Cup. In those kind of cross u don heed to head the ball just aim it. Clichy dont have that , hes almost never overlapping and has crap cross. If u look at Mangala goal how Clichy left that winger it s for me to bench him after that. Hes solid in defense sometimes had extra game in defense but all in all not near Zabba Class and we need that .

[Cocacolajojo1]

I've not seen the full game, only the highlights on the website and on footytube so I can't really comment much. Did we dominate the game as much as the highlights suggest?

I really admire Agüero's goal scoring instincts. Before the first goal he's just wandering around in the penalty area and looks at the ball bouncing back and forth. In a way it looks like he's bored, although I guess he's just waiting. Then the ball bounces in his direction and he reacts immediately. Impressive. If you count in his goals per minute ratio, the fact that he's not bitten anyone and never called anyone anything remotely racist, he's gotta be the best striker in the PL from at least 2011 and onwards. Stating the obvious I suppose.

[smileysamir]

What a game from Zaba!!
http://www.oulala.com/en/player-profile/pablo-zabaleta/1850

2 assists
4 clearances
2 tackles
5 50-50s won
4 interceptions

My man of the match for sure!

[Ted Hughes]

The stats on that site are bizarre.

I only watched the game yesterday & whilst Zabba did very well indeed in an attacking sense, imo defensively he was considerably worse than Clichy.

For a start, the first real big chance Hull had was due to Zabba not recovering fast enough & playing everyone onside leaving Jelavic with a potential tap in.

I saw that Robson character get loads of crosses in from Zabba's area & there is no mention of it. I also saw Zabba get left stranded on at least one occasion, possibly more. Milner saved his arse at least once. Zabba on occasion headed the ball out under little pressure, straight to Hull players around our box.

Clichy by contrast made one bad mistake (exact same mistake as Zabba made at least once) but saved at least two certain goals with quite brilliant last man headers under pressure, due to crosses coming in, unchallenged from Zabba's area. (I'm not convinced at all that the Serbian maestro would have been on the ball to stop those two).

Zabba had Milner watching his arse for a large part of the game & Vinny coming over rescuing him on other occasions. Cichy had an occasional bit of help from Silva, & Mangala struggling like fuck, on his side. The comparisons in this thread are totally unfair.

Having watched the game yesterday, I find the comments on here completely bizarre regarding the assassination of Clichy. I was expecting a completely different game to the one I read about on here. As for comparisons with Kolarov, one is good going forward, the other is a better defender. They both are prone to completely fucking dogshit days at both ends & it's never possible to tell when it's going to happen. In our last but one Premier League home game, we lost because Kolarov let a bloke run 80 fucking yards & couldn't even foul him successfully, let alone tackle him !.

No way has he got any high ground to stand on compared to Clichy so far this season.

[Foreverinbluedreams]

Criticising Zaba - now you've gone and done it Ted.

In regards Kolarov, I agree with you regards Stoke's goal but have a look at Chelsea's too, he chased back alright but what he was doing getting sucked into the centre to try challenge for the ball instead of getting back to his position I just don't know.

[Ted Hughes]

That's what I was referring to in the Mangala thread. We still should have sorted it but it should also be noted that St Zabba was sent off due to a fucking stupid challenge. I recon we would have had 3 points if not for that. We are better than Chelsea & would have got there.

Nothing Clichy has done so far has been any worse than those around him.

[Wonderwall]

Being critical of the full backs is on dodgy ground, we are set up to use the full backs as an attacking force which works a LOT of the time. We cant have fullbacks hell bent on assisting in the attack and also expect them to be in position when a move breaks down. Thats why we are playing the 2 x DM system to drop into the centre and allow the centre backs to push wider to allow the full backs to break.

We got hit on the break from our own shit corner delivery against Stoke and Chelsea.

[Foreverinbluedreams]

Being critical of the full backs is on dodgy ground, we are set up to use the full backs as an attacking force which works a LOT of the time. We cant have fullbacks hell bent on assisting in the attack and also expect them to be in position when a move breaks down. Thats why we are playing the 2 x DM system to drop into the centre and allow the centre backs to push wider to allow the full backs to break.

We got hit on the break from our own shit corner delivery against Stoke and Chelsea.

Yes and all Kolarov had to do was bring Diouf down and on the Chelsea goal run back to his position, he had more than enough time after Sagna had disrupted their counter attack. The criticism of him in both instances is justified imo.

I do take your point though that a lot of the time our full backs will get caught upfield owing to how we set up offensively.

[smileysamir]

The stats on that site are bizarre.

It appears they are sourced directly from Opta, questioning Opta about football stats is much like questioning Mark Zuckerburg about Facebook :)

[Dameerto]

The stats on that site are bizarre.

It appears they are sourced directly from Opta, questioning Opta about football stats is much like questioning Mark Zuckerburg about Facebook :)

Funnily enough whenever I think of Facebook I always think "WHY??"