A disappointing showing by an injury-struck city side against bottom team Colchester, who have had a mini-revival of late.  However a Fraizer Campbell equaliser extended the Tigers unbeaten run further and salvaged a point.

Report by James Lockwood.

Coming away from the 1 all draw with Colchester last season was utterly depressing. At that point I was convinced we’d then be relegated, such was our precarious league position. Coming away from yesterdays match, I felt similarly depressed, but this time it was more to do with the lack-lustre performance of the Tigers.

With a large proportion of the first team out for various reasons, the depth of the City squad is being shown. Yes you could say that are doing well given the circumstances, but the overall style of play shows we’re struggling at the moment.

In front of a rather low and very quiet crowd of 15,664 City named an unchanged side from the one that took a point away at Norwich, so lined up

Myhill
Ricketts Turner Brown Pederson
France Ashbee Walton Barmby
Okocha
Campbell

The opening 10 minutes or so looked quite promising to the Tiger support, with City exerting dominance over the Essex side in this alleged ‘grudge match’, without really troubling the travelling goalkeeper Gerken. From France playing in Barmby to cross and win a corner where JJ produced the first of a poor set piece delivery to be cleared to Ricketts bombing up the right with his cross headed over by Campbell.

The Colchester Centre-back Virgo heads a further cross straight up in the air leaving a number of the City support to suspect we maybe up against a rather dodgy centre-back. The reality was that until his half time injury, he became more solid against the City desperate balls. From that header, City had won a corner which JJ finds France on the edge of the area with Ryan’s shot going wide.

The first Colchester offered against us came from a free-kick, as a result of Campbell being off side. The long ball up field was rather poorly touched away by the outside of Browns boot for Izzet to collect and drive the ball high and wide. Soon after, the transfer window target Duguid got up the right. With Pederson caught rather flat footed and out of position, his run up the wing continued unchallenged before crossing to the un-marked Vernon to head over.

A build up on the left wing starting with Barmby and Pederson before Okocha released Barmby into the area. As Nick stretched to keep the ball in play, he appeared to pull a hamstring, before tentatively limp back to the half-way line and stand just in front of the home dug out for the next 3 or so minutes until the ball next went out of play to allow him to be replaced by Marney on the left wing.

Marney's first involvement had a Ricketts throw-in knocked over to the back post where Dean had arrived, only to head straight at the keeper. Soon afterwards, Ricketts threw the ball up the right wing to Okocha. With Ricketts over-lapping run taking the Colchester left-back with him, it opened enough space for JJ to whip the ball into the area, which caused enough trouble for Gerken to keep it out of the net.

After Duguid knocks over Pederson, an Okocha free-kick is whipped into the back post to be met by the head of Ashbee, only for the keeper to collect. Ashbee followed this up by a jinking run up the left wing, feeding Pederson to cross in and win a corner, which is once again poorly delivered and cleared by Vernon. Walton was the next trying his luck, with pretty much one of the few things he did right all afternoon. From a JJ throw, Walton was fairly central and 30 yards out when his drive was sent just wide.

From a Ricketts run up the right, he knocks the ball back to Okocha whose looping ball is met by the head of Campbell who knocks the ball onto France. It seemed the whole Colchester back 4 had lines up in front of France, blocking his shot.

The obligatory Myhill mess-up came on the 32nd minute. Izzet had got up the City right, but with the ball going loose, Myhill first starts to go for the ball, with Turner electing to allow him the chance, before Bo changed his mind and back-tracked into the goal. Fortunately the ball was crossed to the epitome of lower league lump up front in Clive Platt, who headed over. A further scary moment happened just later as McLeod got up their left and crossed into a rather congested box where utter confusion surrounded the City defence, not knowing what to do next before finally hacking the ball out.

Walton soon found his name taken by the referee Walton. A loose ball saw the QPR loanee wave his foot in the general direction of the ball before catching a Colchester shin. The resulting free-kick was hit to the back post and headed across the front of goal before harmlessly going out of play.

As the first half drew to a close, a ball across midfield finds Okocha in a central position. With France having made space up the right, JJ elects to ignore his team-mate and hit the ball wide of the post.

The final act of the half saw City’s best chance. From midfield, JJ plays in Campbell down the left channel. His ball behind the Colchester back line find France superbly beating the off-side trap leaving him one on one with the keeper, but a rather poor prod at the ball is easily collected by the keeper.

Overall in the first half, some rather neat football through defence and midfield, aided in no small part by the work rate of Okocha looked quite effective, but whenever the rather isolated Campbell offered the ball, it tended to be lumped up to him, meaning we really struggled to mount attacks that troubled Colchester. With Walton really struggling in the middle and Marney being particularly ineffective after his introduction, we were thankful to Colchester being quite so poor.

Seeing Colchester last season, they were quite a good footballing side. This season however, they do seem to have suffered by that team being so decimated. They now play up to the big physical forward line of Clive Platt and Scott Vernon – not very pretty.

A half time Substitution saw Colchester replace Virgo, who’d earlier taken a knock, with ex-Chelsea left back Danny Granville, whilst City seeing the isolation of Campbell introduced Folan at the expense of Walton.

What we then got was some of the worst all round football I’ve seen in some time from both sides. This did however start with a cracking goal. Unfortunately it was a Colchester goal. A long ball up field was knocked out by Brown to Jackson about 30 yards out. His drive at goal just evaded the finger-tips of Myhill before sneaking into the top corner and over the line.

City soon have a chance to get level. A long JJ throw to the back post had France head across goal to Coyne. His header appears to be heading to the bottom corner, before Gerken gets down well to palm the ball wide

Colchester seem to be spurred on by the goal, whereas City dropped off. The result of this was about 15 minutes of lack-lustre football with the inability to string more then 2 passes together produced by both sides. The chief culprits on the City side were the weak involvement of wide players France and Marney who were very easily knocked off the ball, whilst Pederson at left back was looking quite tired, and continued to struggle with any form of pace. As the home crowd grew more frustrated (by which I mean the quiet crowd mumbled something every now and again), Izzet ghosted past Brown and into the space we’d normally expect Turner who for some reason had gone walk-about before shooting wide.

Finally after the hour mark, City get back into the game. A long ball up the left is met by Marney. He gets up the wing to win a throw down by the corner flag. JJ’s throw finds Ashbee whose shot is deflected wide. The resulting corner sees Marney find Turner in a central position who elects to head the ball down rather than at goal, so is cleared.

Shortly afterwards, City are level. A Colchester defender pushes over Folan about 25 yards out, towards the right. JJ hits the free-kick into the area to be met by the diving head of Campbell on the edge of the 6 yard box which deflects the ball into the back of the net.

Soon afterwards JJ releases Ricketts up the right. As he reaches the dead ball line, it does appear that the ball had gone out, but Sam manages to claw the ball back to Campbell to head over.

These ‘bright sparks’ are rare moments in a poor second half as the overall play once again descends to depths not seen since Heeley was in charge.

After a Colchester free-kick which was given after a Colchester defender charges into France, a long ball is cleared for a corner. This is then hit in deep before Colchester are penalised for a charge on Myhill.

A couple more City chances follow. A long Myhill clearance is headed on first by Folan, then Campbell before just evading Marney and into the grateful hands of Gerken. A further Myhill clearance is misjudged by Coyne giving Folan position. As Caleb shapes to shoot, Campbell gets in his way, so assists Colchester in clearing the ball.

Colchester get up the City left, with Pederson once again beaten by the winger, it’s down to Brown to clear up.

City’s best chance to win the game soon follows. Campbell wins a free-kick 30 yards out having had his shirt held by Ifil. JJ’s free-kick is met by Folan at the back post, but his shot is knocked out wide by the keeper to the lurking Ricketts. His shot is knocked out to Brown who’s good chance sees his shot palmed wide by an excellent save.

With the referee finally bringing a close to a game where both teams should both have lost, given how bad they both were.

The second half saw the bad performances, particularly of the 2 wide players, but also with moving to a straight 4-4-2 in the second half, Okocha had been increasingly marginalised by playing a much deeper role.

Saying that, even though the performance was poor, we did take a point from the game, and surely we can’t play so poorly against West Brom, can we?

HULL CITY (4-4-2): Myhill; Ricketts, Turner, Brown, Pedersen; France, Walton, Ashbee, Barmby; Campbell, Okocha.  Subs: Marney (for Barmby, 16), Folan (for Walton, 46), Doyle, Featherstone, Tyler.

Goals: Campbell 64

Booked: Marney, Walton

Sent Off: None

COLCHESTER UNITED: Gerken, Ifil, Coyne, Virgo, White, McLeod, Izzet Vernon, Duguid, Jackson, Platt.  Subs: Granville (for Virgo, 46), Cousins, Watson, Sheringham, Guttridge.

Goals: Jackson 47

Booked: McLeod

Sent Off: None

REFEREE:  P Walton

ATTENDANCE: 15,664