This remarkable topsy turvy season continues as a feeble Preston side - showing no signs of being the top six challenger they are - are out fought by a hard working City side.

Honestly, I leave you lot alone for one home game – ONE home game – and it’s a disaster. Thank the Lord I was able to get back so we can put behind us a night of missed clearances and missed opportunities for references to popular 1970s singing duos (for those of you who had been wondering what happened after Peters and Lee had split up, apparently Lee went solo and Peters went straight into a lamp post). You might expect a team with a squad that includes Warren Beattie to be very a good looking, but instead they just seemed to vanish, perhaps because they also have Paul McKenna. But whatever the reason, yesterday was fine. One of the division’s better sides turns up, then turns turtle and presents itself for us to jump all over. And we duly did.

Doing just about everything right were:

Myhill
Ricketts Turner Delaney Dawson
Livermore Parlour Ashbee Elliott
Forster Windass

Although that was not how we started out. Welsh began in midfield but on 3 minutes dived two-footed into ex-Liverpool fat lad Mellor. It was a dreadful tackle and merited a straight red. What it actually produced was a stretcher on to which Welsh was plonked before being carted off with rumours that his season, which has never really started, was now finished. A great shame, but we were very lucky that we were able to bring on Livermore to have one of his good days, rather than battle it out with only 10.

We had the best of it early on. And then we had the best of it in the middle. And finally we finished it on top. Not that we had to do a great deal, as they were unremittingly supine whilst we were neat and workmanlike. If you think I mean neither side did much worth writing about and that I am vamping to fill time, then you are not far off the mark. After 5 minutes Dean fell over in their area and was rightly not given a penalty, although he scowled and swore, the scamp. A few minutes later Parlour gave the ball away in ‘couldn’t give a fuck’ fashion straight to Nugent. This is generally not a good idea and as Nugent out paced Turner it didn’t look healthy but the defence re-grouped and we scrambled it away.

We got a nice grip on the game. For perhaps the first time since Brown has taken charge we seemed to be trying a more fluid formation principally due to Elliott who got back to defend when needed but frequently scurried forward wide on the left and was the out ball for the midfield. This particularly helps Ashbee who can give it the characteristic aimless swing of the right leg and see the resultant hoick go close enough to Stuart for the lad to leap gamely and like as not get something on it. Lots of things didn’t work for Stuart, but he can do things that no-one else can, and as such it’s generally good to see him on the pitch.

After a quarter of an hour we got our second major lucky break. We had forced 3 consecutive corners to no effect before they cleared it to Nugent who made a fool of Delaney leaving him staggering around as the striker advanced diagonally in from the right. His cross ballooned up and he and Myhill both went for it in fairly half-hearted fashion. Nugent immediately held his back and that was effectively the end of his afternoon. Not that he went off straight away. Preston’s reliance on him seems to be complete, and he staggered around for a 10 minutes more during which time we took the lead. Not surprisingly it was another corner, delivered in the style of Arsenal circa 1993. Whipped in hard by Parlour (who could have predicted that would work better than the succession of crap floaters that Marney and Dawson have served up all season, eh? Sometime it really is a simple game) for a big central defender (Steve Bould or Michael Turner) at the near post to flick on with his head for a nippy well-positioned striker (Ian Wright or Nicky Forster) to head in at the back post. As I said, a simple game if you do it right.

The visitors bowed to the inevitable and took off Nugent for Aygemang and you could see their reluctance was well founded, as it was clear that they were never going to get back in the game. They didn’t have a serious attempt on goal after he went off. Mind you, for the rest of the half, neither did we. Half time saw us 1-0 up and comfy.

It also saw us watching something very odd. The Royal Marines were in town and gave us a display of quite remarkable silliness. They neatly laid down some mats. They stood on these in threes. Then they fell over, pretended to hit each other, got up, sneaked up on their colleagues who then fell over in their turn, rapidly and theatrically, before leaping up and saluting he crowd. It was pure WWF smackdown, in all its camp daftness, although it would probably look better if they did do it dressed only in sparkly crotch-hugging trunks with their hair worn a bit longer as the professionals do. All the time a smaller man shouted rapidly and incomprehensibly through a microphone. We should be grateful that this man is not employed in one of the current theatres of war in which England is engaged as the thought of him issuing orders on a field of battle is frankly an alarming one.

If you are wondering who I am to comment, I am something of an authority on the Marines, having read The Valiant in my youth wherein I enjoyed the adventures of Captain Hurricane, who tended to win his battles in the second world war by hitting his enemies with one of their kamerades held by the ankles, whilst roaring ‘Take that, you sausage-guzzling swine!’ whilst his batman, the tiny and oddly named Maggot Malone, looked on. The good captain was a huge and terrifying man, and it’s hard not to think that had he had been witness to a display of the sort of formation twatting about that we were subject to on Saturday it would have provoked one of his celebrated ragin’ furies accompanied by a red face and stream emitted from the ears. And I’m also someone who thinks that a celebration of the military is something that should be left to dodgy juvenile regimes such as Nazi Germany, Soviet Russia or the United States of America, and doesn’t befit a grown up country like England. But that, of course, is just my opinion.

The second half began with 10 minutes of staggering mediocrity. Then things flagged for a bit. Then we did come under a bit of pressure as Aygemang and high profile England international striker Michael Ricketts, now cleverly converted into a non-scoring right sided midfielder, forced a corner. Myhill flapped this away unconvincingly for another corner which he then caught properly. Myhill then did well to smother an attack down our left.

Rather than this signifying a wave of pressure from a fine side desperate to break into the Premiership, it proved to be a dead cat bounce as we got hold of the game and didn’t let it go. The back four were solid. In midfield, Ashbee sprayed passes around. None of them went anywhere near any of our players, most of them didn’t even go anywhere near any of their players, but that’s the skipper. And I’m Sure We Wouldn’t Have Him Any Other Way. Fortunately others around him were playing well and Windass and Forster were a constant threat. Parlour cleverly played in Windass, Dean was cleverer still, running across the box he got in a sweetly flicked reversed shot that beat the keeper but not the post. Minutes later Dean sumptuously flicked a header from a long clearance straight into the path of Forster, but once again the little fella couldn’t win a one on one with the keeper and the chance went. Good save, if truth be told. We weren’t to be denied long, as a fine Ricketts cross was just beyond Dean. Except it wasn’t, as he back pedalled, stretched and cushioned his header perfectly back across the goal for the advancing Livermore to bravely dive and head home. 2-0, and we were home and hosed and could enjoy the last 20 minutes.

And enjoy them we did, as Preston did nothing to upset us. Elliott had a right foot shot deflected and well saved. Ricardo Vaz Te made his debut, coming on for the persevering Forster. As Forster went off, Ashbee reached out to shake his hand, a gesture that will have alarmed the striker for if Ashbee showed the sort of accuracy he had managed with his passes then the front man was presumably bracing himself for a poke in the eye or a punch in the goolies. Then we got the chance to give a rousing send off to one Hull icon as Dean left the pitch to be replaced by another Hull icon and recipient of an equally great ovation as he was replaced by Nicky. How good that felt, and how good it was to see Nicky on harrying and prompting. Vaz Te did a couple of exciting step overs, one which ended as he fell over and one which ended with him blootering it a mile wide. We all laughed indulgently, as though at a precocious child taking its first faltering steps. You can do that sort of thing when you are 2-0 up at home with a couple of minutes to go. If it happens again on Tuesday and we happen to be a goal down at the same stage it may look a touch different.

But we won and we won easily. Astonishing, really, but there we are. We won because we defended well against a side not at all up for it so that midfield was not knocked out of its collective stride, and because we have strikers of substance. Forster tireless and clever, Elliott bothering us at times but them even more, and Dean, a proper footballer of intelligence, skill and effort and above all the desire to do what’s needed to help whoever he plays for. And who seems, like Nicky, to like playing for his home club most of all. In a good team display he was man of the match by miles. If that happens again on Tuesday, we’ll win and I’ll be well pleased. And I may believe that we will stay up, not just that we could stay up. But to end on a note of caution, we also won because we didn’t have an early sending off that we should have done and because their best player got injured, just like an important reason for us beating Birmingham was they played most of the game with 10 men. We don’t always get this, and that is part of reason we don’t always win.

HULL CITY (4-3-3): Myhill; Ricketts, Turner, Delaney, Dawson; Parlour, Ashbee, Welsh; Forster, Windass, Elliott.  Subs: Livermore (for Welsh, 5), Vaz Te (for Forster, 86), Barmby (for Windass, 88), Doyle, Duke.

Goals: Forster 29, Livermore 70

Booked: None

Sent Off: None

PRESTON NORTH END: Lonergan, Alexander, St Ledger, Chilvers, Davidson, Pugh, Sedgwick, Pergl, Ricketts, Nugent, Mellor.  Subs: Agyemang (for Nugent, 31), Songo'o (for Pergl, 60), Henderson, Dichio, Soley.

Goals: None

Booked: Pugh, Ricketts

Sent Off: None

REFEREE:  M Pike

ATTENDANCE: 17,118