After a two week break the same frailties and lack of cohesion are evident as a confident but less- than- scary Burnley side clobber the Tigers and send them back to the foot of the table.

"it's not nice to be bottom, but it's time to batten down the hatches, stick together and come out fighting and we will do that. We didn't start the game well enough and before we knew where we were we were 2-0 down."

So if you didn't feel bad enough already, then you should now, as you consider the sage words of our manager, reading presumably from the Oxford Book of Football Cliches. If that's the best he can do to sum up yesterday, then we really are in deep cack. Hard to argue with the last sentence, but even I could see that. I could also see defenders who got caught out of position, midfielders who were constantly outpassed and outtackled and strikers who never, ever, struck.

Sorting that out is going to take much more than hatch battening and together sticking.

We were awful and we lost to a decent side who we made at times look like AC Milan circa 1994. Failing to do anywhere near enough were:

Myhill
Thelwell Mills Turner Dawson
Fagan Ashbee Marney Yeates
Parkin Bridges

So the first surprise, an unchanged team from the Crystal game, a puzzler that, given we were pretty awful for most of that match. But we started off OK, not brilliantly, but making passes that were collected by the members of our team to whom they were aimed. It doesn't sound much, I know, but as the afternoon wore on we were to pine, hopelessly nostalgic, for those great times of the first 5 minutes.

It didn't take long for it to go to custard. Dawson handled a cross and curiously, given how decisions have been going this season, all we conceded was the corner. We were still congratulating ourselves over this change in luck as the corner was ripped over and competently flicked behind by Myhill. The second corner came, Parkin left Duff whom he was supposed to be marking and their man did what you do with an uncontested header, you bury it. 1-0 and very poor defending.

Veteran tigerfolk know that there's no situation so bad it can't immediately get worse and within a couple of minutes Ashbee had given the ball away, Yeates hadn't bothered to track back and put in a tackle so it was easy for the Burnster to put in a cross for Noel-Williams who wasn't marked - I mean, why would be be? - and he got to show that he too could put away uncontested headers and that was 2-0 and that was just about that for the day.

Not that we didn't have chances. We had two. Parkin got on to to the end of a loopy cross but his left foot shot, after he had barged himself some space, was deflected wide. Then Turner, giving himself a break from fruitlessly chasing strikers, got forward well and crossed for Bridges who had time to produce better than the lame effort he got off.

At the other end it was more of the same. I wrote in my notes that Thelwell was fucked by Jones. Now that can't have been literally correct, you'd have heard more about it by now, but somehow it says exactly what was happening to the hapless Alton. But Jones looked him up and down, liked what he saw, decided he didn't need to bother buying him a brandy and babycham first and so made his move. This produced a cross that we again didn't bother defending but Burnley were perhaps getting suspicious of our uncontested header policy and put this one wide.

Then my notes said Thelwell was destroyed by Jones. Again, this can't have been quite true, in the sense of vaporising him so that only a small pile of ash remained, but again the phrase does the trick. This time the cross was inadvertently blocked by Turner who almost claimed the OG as the uncontrolled ball spun off him.

On 44 minutes Thelwell made a tackle. This was accompanied by loud, cruel, thoroughly pissed of cheers from our end. It was a curious and slightly sad sound, the sound of a career that must have begun in such optimism and reached its apotheosis in the signing for a posh London club coming to a miserable end in East Lancashire.

At half time we were distracted by the least interested cheer leaders I've ever seen. If this was a protest against the inherent sexism of this form of entertainment, then the vague, asynchronous arm waving of young women in white blouses and black joggers out of time to the music was as effective a statement as I have yet seen. So I gazed at the hills, bathed in sunshine, adorned by the ethereal yet functional beauty of wind turbines, and was glad how many more important things than football there are.

Second half and I was gladder still once the game started. Again we flattered to deceive at the start of a half. Initially we improved. Thelwell was off, Coles was on in the middle of defence, Mills moved to the right. Parkin ran at them with vigour and blazed a shot from the narrow angle that was saved. Then Bridges, Yeates and Fagan combined to set up Parkin again but he headed over.

And then we gave up .Yeates gave the ball away, they launched another attack down our right flank that produced a free kick. The wall was poorly set up and then leapt out of the way. I thought they'd scored, but Myhill produced an excellent save low to his right. Custodian of the leather.

We were under the hammer now. Jones was finding Mills not much more challenging that Thelwell. Mills had been carded in the first half and should have walked in the second as he dived in at Jones. The referee was probably feeling sorry for us by this time so he Administered a Talking To, rather than doing his job. Jones celebrated Mills understandably thinking he had ridden his luck far enough by outstripping him and getting in another cross that was headed wide.

For the last 25 minutes the game meandered. They felt they had done enough and they were right. Marney fell over, injured and, as Welsh was brought on for him, the cheers were rapturous. O dear. It did no good, mind, neither did the removal of Parkin for Forster, who did as he always has done up to now, not very much. We were toothless, passionless and clueless. I was desperate for it to end long before it actually did.

At the end the team were loudly booed as they trudged off. Parkinson came over to us and applauded as the fans booed. Depending on your view this is either a chap brave enough to face the flak, or a desperate attempt at crowd pleasing from a man who has run rapidly out of ideas. Your call. I didn't boo, because I don't boo teams I support however poor they are. But I don't applaud that sort of shit, either.

Negatives, too many to list. Positives, Fagan tried, Bo did well apart from his hopeless distribution, Coles improved us defensively in the second half, McPhee is, presumably as ever, only 2 weeks away from fitness. And at least we don't have to go to Lancashire this week to take on a team third in the league who have just thrashed fancied opponents 4-1. Oh, right, yes, actually we do to do a bit more of that. As the manager said, it is not nice to be bottom. Dear God.

It would be a really good idea to beat Luton.

HULL CITY (4-4-2): Myhill; Thelwell, Turner, Mills, Dawson; Fagan, Marney, Ashbee, Yeates; Parkin, Bridges.  Subs: Coles (for Thelwell, 45), Forster (for Parkin, 67), Welsh (for Marney, 73), France, Duke.

Goals: None

Booked: Coles, Mills

Sent Off: None

BURNLEY: Jensen, Sincalir, McGreal, Duff, Harley, Elliott, J O'Connor, Hyde, Jones, Gray, Noel-Williams.  Subs: Mahon (for Elliott, 84), G O'Connor (for Jones, 88), McCann (for Hyde, 89), Lafferty, Foster.

Goals: Duff 10; Noel-Williams 13

Booked: None

Sent Off: None

REFEREE: A Penn

ATTENDANCE: 11,530