Apart from a mad 3 minutes before half-time, a strong Southampton side give the Tigers another undressing.

Dismal stuff. A thoroughly deserved beating. Aside from an astonishing sixty seconds at the end of the first half, when we scored twice, and a becalmed period during the middle of the second half when it looked as if the game might peter out into a tame draw, we were severely second-best all afternoon. Playing like this, the only way is not up.

Hmph. I muttered some stuff in the pub beforehand about abandoning 4- 5-1 being the number one priority, and dropping Forster being number two on my wish list. And lo!

Myhill
Ricketts Coles Turner Delaney
Marney Ashbee Livermore Elliott
Fagan Barmby

A better set-up than the crass 4-5-1 that has weighed us down in recent weeks, but even so a deeply inadequate 90 minutes followed. Since I was obviously on a roll in my pre-match instructions to Mr Parkinson I should have added `Number 3, drop Turner, number 4, play Welch…..'. We'd still have lost, I expect.

With Fagan and Barmby nipping around industriously, we made a modestly lively start. On 9 Barmby arrived from deep and toe-ended an effort into the grateful hands of Davis in the Soton goal. Then, on 12, Barmby sets up Elliott to burst down the left though his shot flies too high. Quarter-of-an-hour gone and Barmby has already contributed more as a linkman than Forster has managed since we signed him.

But, o dear, we really can't defend. On 16 Kenwyne Jones is left unmarked inside the box and only a fine reaction block by Boaz rescues us.

But not for long. On 20 a rather attractive spell of City passing is interrupted by a crass blunder by Livermore, who stumbles over the ball as if it's a broken paving-stone, gifting it to the opposition. They don't hang about. They get forward, a perfect low cross slides invitingly in behind our defence and Raziak, drifting easily into space towards the back post, tucks the chance into our net. It's brutally efficient play from Soton. It's rubbish by Livermore.

And the manager promptly makes a change. Marney is hauled off in favour of France. Now, Marney hadn't done much and, in fact, had just received a bawling from Ashbee for his indolence. Was he being punished from perceived failure to track back and cover Rasiak? Seems a bit harsh. We had possession until Livermore squandered it and surely Marney should have been going forward not back? Anyway, Marney is not suited to play wide right in a 4-4-2, so why pick him? Hmph.

Soon after Elliott is harshly judged to have committed a foul in midfield and from the free-kick young Bale sends a dipping left-foot shot from 25 yards into the top corner of the net, up and over the wall with Boaz at full-stretch but helpless.

I have not been at all impressed by this Division this season and think it much weaker than last year, when we enjoyed (and were frequently outclassed by) players like Sidwell, Doyle, Jagielka, Marlon King and Kenny Miller. I'm not sure I've seen anyone this year before yesterday who looks to be developing into a proper top-level player – but Bale is one, I should imagine.

2-0 down and witlessly poor. The crowd is more depressed than angry. No one expected this season to turn out so badly.

Ashbee tries to inject some vigour, Elliott runs about a bit – no one is hiding except Livermore, but the whole is not greater than the sum of the parts. That's to say, we don't really look a team. There's little collective spirit and no obvious game plan.

We reach 45 minutes, and the electronic board is about to be raised, when we score. Absurdly so, given how limp we've become since falling two behind. A Livermore corner is underhit and too close to the goal but luckily bounces off the near-post out to Ashbee, just inside the box. He tries to shoot but the combination of erratically bouncing ball and intruding defender impedes him and all he can do is shovel a bobbling effort goalwards. Barmby's sharpest to react and he turns it in past a flabbergasted Soton defence.

Rarely has a goal been so utterly unexpected. People are laughing in incredulity as much as cheering in jubilation.

And now the board's raised, and there's just one added minute at the end of the half. We score in it too. It's a nice move, in fact: a pass, close control, a turn and a glorious through ball behind the visiting defence for Fagan to streak after. Nice move indeed. But aforementioned pass, close control, turn and glorious through ball are all the property of Southampton players. Suicidal madness has gripped the opposition and Fagan, admirably calm when his first reaction must have been to chortle at the insanity of the game of football and this game of football in particular, pokes the gift past Davis and into the corner of the net.

Sheer hilarity.

Half-time, 2-2. Bewildering, undeserved, utterly unforeseen but massively mirthful and a huge relief – that quickfire brace had something of the Duane Darby last-gasp equaliser against Whitby about it. Memories indeed….

Whitby caved in during extra-time, but Southampton did not oblige once the second-half got underway.

It began cracklingly. Jones was allowed an alarming amount of time to turn and shoot powerfully, but Boaz made routinely short work of the effort. Then, at the other end, France bursts through and sends a thudding right-foot shot just wide of the target. It's lively now, and we have just the better of the play, until our rhythm is disrupted on 54 by yet another defensive howler by Turner, whose utter lack of confidence on (or near) the ball reminds me of the short Test career of whey-faced Somerset opener Mark Lathwell. Jones is the beneficiary of this latest ineptitude, and we desperately managed to scramble the ball away for a corner.

Straggly-bearded David Prutton comes on as sub, aligning himself down the right with the still-hairier Ostlund to provide the most unkempt partnership Hull has seen since the heyday of sideburns (in my book Frankie Banks was always the King of that fashion challenge), but the game has lost its flow. A couple of long stoppages for injury don't help, nor does the fussy insistence of referee Halsey that all those hurt must troop off the pitch and wait for Sir's permission before returning. He has three lined up on the touchline like naughty schoolboys at one point.

If the game is dull, it suits us. We might survive. The visitors are oddly reticent to up the pace. Perhaps they fear us. This is, after all, the fourth time Saints've looked convincingly better than Hull City in the space of about 14 months and yet still they can't beat us.

This time they can.

Livermore takes a clout and is forced off by Mr Halsey once he sees blood. There's space in midfield. Soton exploit it. Barmby sees the danger and tries to get back, but he's too late. Skacel surges forward, plays the ball off to his left, the ball is transferred into the centre, and Rasiak pounces to score the third and decisive goal. It is, for sure, a well-worked goal. But I'd've liked to see us mark Rasiak more attentively in this match. Our defending is no better now, in early December, than it was on the first ominous August Tuesday of the season, when Barnsley couldn't believe their luck when faced with our feeble defensive generosity.

Welsh replaces Livermore on 75, which is a cool 75 minutes too late by my reckoning. A minute later we claim handball in a box, but in a very `we're gonna lose this unless we get really lucky' kind of a way. No penalty as far as I'm concerned. But a couple of minutes later referee Halsey gets it absurdly wrong. Notorious thug Lundekvam shoves Barmby aggressively in the chest. Clearly a red-card offence – hands raised, nasty intent, ten-a-penny thirty years ago, an unavoidable sending-off nowadays. Halsey merely books Lundekvam. And then books Barmby too. Presumably for being assaulted.

We are not, however, seriously endangering the Soton goal and soon after this tawdry incident the match is finally and definitively lost. More sloppy defence. Ball gifted to the opposition. Bradley Wright-Phillips enjoys lots of space, turns the ball easily past Myhill. Rotten stuff.

It's nearly time to go. Forster comes on for Ricketts and, cleverly set up by Barmby, it's Forster who is allowed our final glimpse of the Southampton goal, but his surge into the box is easily dealt with a defender who, like all the defenders that Forster meets, is too strong for him. End. 2-4.

I listened to Radio Humberside after the match. Look, it's not something I'm proud of. It's unswervingly brazen amateurish pap, but since Radio 5 has abandoned the elegantly straightforward format of filling the hour between 5 and 6 with scores, reports, ruminations and the racing headlines in favour of turgid commentary on the latest Premiership mis-match (Middlesbrough v Manchester United last night – did anyone who cared about this millionaires' borefest really listen to the radio rather than watch the telly? so why cover it?), the choice is limited to Humberside or urbane and witty conversation served up by me, and my travelling companion's finger hit the radio's ON button as soon as this menu of options was offered. Anyway, Mr Parkinson was interviewed. It was grindingly, horribly awful. I mean, I felt sorry for him. Behind the banal managerial platitudes, delivered in understandably downbeat terms, there is clearly a man who's facing tasks that pull him beyond the limits of his abilities. There was no glimpse that he has plans to improve things, short-term, medium-term, Michaelmas Term, any old term, no indication that he knows where he wants to take the team. That, of course, has been a conclusion that's hard to avoid on the basis of the hapless displays his team has been putting in with increasing regularity in recent weeks. But I still found it dismaying to hear such a woebegone manifesto from Mr Parkinson himself. I would say that Terry Dolan and the revolting Stan Ternent were allowed to go on longer as our manager than their teams' displays merited (far longer in Dolan's case), and it gives me no pleasure to reckon that poor Mr Parkinson is now slipping beyond his allocated time in charge. The best – and perhaps only? – argument for keeping him is that it's not obvious who would take over. By the time a second caller to Radio Humberside had namechecked Joe Royle it was all too much for me, and the OFF button was deployed with maximum violence. The miles began to tick by on the long, dark and sullen drive home.

HULL CITY (4-4-2): Myhill; Ricketts, Turner, Coles, Delaney; Fagan, Ashbee, Livermore, Marney; Fagan, Barmby.  Subs: France (for Marney, 21), Welsh (for Livermore, 75), Forster (for Ricketts, 83), McPhee, Duke.

Goals: Barmby 44; Fagan 45

Booked: Barmby

Sent Off: None

SOUTHAMPTON: Davis, Ostlund, Lundekvam, Baird, Bale, Surman, Pele, Skacel, Wright, Rasiak, Jones.  Subs: Prutton (for Surman, 55), Wright-Phillips (for Jones, 62), Bialkowski, Makin, Viafara.

Goals: Rasiak 19, 75; Bale 25; Wright-Phillips 82

Booked: Lundekvam

Sent Off: None

REFEREE:  M Halsey

ATTENDANCE: 15,697