Source: Telegraph
Aston Villa 3 Hull City 0: match report
The boy-band headset was missing once more, but the rebranding of Phil Brown has received a nasty reality check as his Hull City side's recent run of good fortune came to a brutal end at Villa Park. [LNB]Bereft of ideas and application, Hull were put to the sword by Aston Villa, with goals from Richard Dunne no, seriously, again James Milner and John Carew. Martin O'Neill is looking decidedly confident. He even sat down on one occasion. [LNB] Related ArticlesPremier League tablePremier League actionTelegraph player raterPremier League fixturesSport on televisionNaturally this will be hugely disappointing for Brown, as it had seemed as though the tide had turned of late. But the real downer will be that Jimmy Bullard, one of the key men responsible for their resurgent form and November's Player of the Month, left the pitch after 20 minutes with another knee injury. The signs were not good. 'It's too early to say,' said Brian Horton, Hull's assistant manager. [LNB]Brown loves his military metaphors. Most managers do. The classroom in which he lectures his troops, for example, is known as the 'war room'. But perhaps his interest ends with the clichés, else he would have known that they key to victory is cutting off the enemy's supply line. [LNB]Villa's midfield dominated utterly. Orbiting around the anchor otherwise known as Stiliyan Petrov, Stewart Downing making his first Premier League start for Villa Ashley Young and Milner made it very miserable for Hull, running harder, faster, and tackling harder, faster, and generally enjoying life. [LNB]Milner behaves like a school boy on a sugar rush, and he was irrepressible once again. Does he never run out of energy? It was he who got the show on the road, picking out Dunne who had made a foray into the area. The defender took a touch and sent a missile in off the crossbar for his third goal of the season. O'Neill, who has an array of entertaining dug-out gestures, excelled even himself, with a spectacular leap as if attempting a slam dunk which morphed into the most delightful pirouette. [LNB]Fifteen feet away stood Brown, face contorted by a rictus grimace. Things were about to get much worse. Bullard, upended by Milner (a candidate for a caution if ever there was), came down to earth with a thump, his hand immediately feeling for his knee. The midfielder limped off, came back on, but sank back to the floor within seconds. Distressing scenes, and he left the field to a standing ovation, escorted the last six yards by his manager. [LNB]Bullard has been the lynchpin to Hull's revival, and without him they were completely cut adrift, shorn of ideas going forward, and composure at the back, and before they knew it the margin was two, when Matt Duke suffered what is known in the business as a brain fart. [LNB]Emerging from his area to bail out his backtracking defenders, who had Gabby Agbonlahor breathing down their necks, the goalkeeper met the ball by the sideline and headed it out, but straight to Steve Sidwell, who was doing his stretches. [LNB]The former Chelsea midfielder must be wondering how he is ever going to get back into this team, but he could still contribute, handing the ball immediately to Agbonlahor, who threw to Milner, who in turn chipped a rapidly retreating Duke. Great finish, but again, farcical defending. [LNB]By this time Brown had reached supernova on the sidelines. But there was nothing he could do, beyond bringing on Nicky Barmby to lend some experience. Things improved marginally, but then Duke laid out Ashley Young with three minutes left and Carew rounded off the afternoon from the spot. [LNB]
