After a truly terrible hour of play in which relegation rivals Bolton ease into a two goal lead, the home self-destruct in fine style and the Tigers claim a most unlikely away point after two Stephen Hunt strikes.

Report by Ed Bacon.

Arsenal, Manchester United, Bolton, Chelsea, Tottenham, Manchester United again. There's a good argument for saying that the big game in City's current run of league fixtures was last night at the Reebok. Bolton away is the one match in six weeks when we get to test ourselves against fellow relegation candidates.

I've not read the morning papers yet, but I reckon the phrase `a point is not much use to either team' is bound to crop up. Certainly what we witnessed can best be summed up as inconclusive. For much of the game City were awful with a capital C. And yet, and yet, for the second time in just over a month we fought back from a two goal deficit to grab a `precious premier league point' (© P. Brown 2009). If anything is to carry us to safety this season, it will be spirit and fight, not class and skill.

On a bitter and bleak midwinter night, blowing hot and cold for City were:

Myhill
Mendy Zayatte Gardner Dawson
Garcia Olofinjana Boateng Hunt
Altidore Fagan

It's freezing cold, sleet falls incessantly, carried on a biting wind, and City's fans all but fill the away end, having trecked across the Pennines where sleet has become snow on the highest stretches of the M62. The team turns out in our fetching, and inappropriately tropical, aquamarine away kit and defends the goal in front of us for the first half.

The opening exchanges consist of a series of freekicks, mostly to Bolton, conceded in the middle of the park as both teams find their feet on the slick surface. Five times at least Bolton get a freekick and loft it aimlessly into our area where it's cleared. City respond with a couple of runs - from Altidore and Garcia - which carry the ball forward but don't carry much threat.

I worry, as I always do when we take on Bolton, that Matt Taylor is going to hit one of his unstoppable shots from the edge of the area. Happily though he's not on his game tonight. Unhappily, Ivan Klasnic is.

On 20 minutes, Bolton get hold of yet another loose ball in midfield and knock it forward to Klasnic running towards the edge of our area with Garcia in pursuit and none of our defenders closing him down. Klasnic shoots low, hard, and predictably, into the bottom corner of our goal. From my seat a few rows from the front and right behind the goal, I arrogantly judge Myhill's dive to have been too slow and too late. What do I know? I'm no premier league keeper. The question though is whether Bo Myhill is.

1 - 0

City are rattled, and for the next quarter of an hour or so, we play some of the worst football I've seen from us for some time.

The defence is stretched out of position; Fagan boots a ball that is already out of touch straight into the Bolton crowd with the sort of power and accuracy all too lacking when faced with an opposing keeper; a Zayatte back pass is nowhere near Myhill and goes for a Bolton corner; the otherwise excellent Boateng hits a crossfield ball straight into touch.

The only vaguely bright spot is a Dawson freekick, from his favoured position on the edge of the box a little to our right. He hits it well, but not quite into the top corner, and Jaaskelainen fists it away.

Then it's back to pantomime time. Even Phil Brown gets into the act, controlling the ball as it bounces towards the dug-out, attempting to kick it down the line for Dawson to take a throw-in, but succeeding only in wellying it into the back of soon-to-be-ex-Bolton boss Megson, who sportingly acknowledges Brown's error with a wave of his hand. Mind you, I'd be sporting if I managed a team 1-0 up against what manifestly looks to be a bunch of poor players out of their depth in the premier league. Ah, how quickly things change in football!

Up to the half hour City continue in this inept vein. Gardner and Myhill confuse one another in our penalty area, leaving a harassed Gardner to play a loose ball across the area, intended for Zayatte, but knicked off his boot by a marauding Trotter.

Blimey, we're really awful.

Then on the half hour comes our best chance so far. Fagan's persistence sees him burst into their box and round the oncoming central defender. But he pushes the ball a little too far, and Jaaskelainen claims it.

This seems to lift City a bit, and we start to make a few half chances, and look a bit more likely. But the key issue with this team is where the goals are going to come from. Altidore is not yet, if he ever will be, a premier league class striker. He's out of his depth and simply doesn't have the control and guile needed. Fagan likewise, although a great little player in many ways and the embodiment of the spirit which may yet see us through, is technically limited and not a regular scorer.

On half time City get a free kick on the edge of the Bolton box. Hunt and Boateng shield the ball. Dawson runs over the ball, and Altidore strikes it hard but off target.

Half time. And I optimistically imagine Phil Brown tearing into his team in the dressing room, ready to send them out with his words ringing in their ears, spurring them on to attack in wave after wave towards the massed City fans.

For the first few minutes of the second half, City do a reasonable impression of this. A neat combination of Garcia, Mendy and Fagan down the right looks impressive. But again, there's no real sense of who might get on the end of anything produced.

By 50 minutes, this initial second half spark has gone, the wind is blowing the sleet into my face, and Bolton are attacking.

Brown takes off the ineffective Altidore and replaces him with Barmby who takes up position on the right wing, pushing Garcia up front with Fagan in an attempt to re-create the famous Colchester United forward line of 2004-05. Two nippy forwards, against the massive Zat Knight and the quite big Gary Cahill. It might work, but I'm doubting it.

On 58 we win a corner. Hunt, who takes corners from both right and left all night, swings this one in from our right. It finds Zayatte, unmarked, rising high, 6 yards out, but he doesn't make proper contact and the ball merely brushes his Mohican when it should have been bulging the net.

Then on 60 minutes we concede again. A Bolton free kick in their half is lofted, as so often before, aimlessly towards our box. For no apparent reason, Myhill decides that the ball is his, a dozen yards out from the goal. But having made his decision, he doesn't get to it, and Kevin Davies jumps ahead of him, looping the ball over Myhill into the back of the next.

2 - 0

If Myhill's blame for the first goal is debatable, there's less question about the second.

Again, City's response is ineffective. Fagan hassles commendably, but with no end product. On 63 Brown takes off Garcia and brings on Jan Vennegoor of Hesselink. That Colchester forward line had had its 13 minute chance and failed to deliver, so it's time for a big striker to come on.

We really appear to have no idea here. Poor players, handicapped further by tactical changes which leave little clarity over what game we're trying to play. Are we going for short and nippy along the ground, or high ball onto Big Jan's forehead?

To be fair, we're still trying, and look pretty skilfull in the build up. On 68 minutes there's lots of lovely passing the ball around, neat triangles, Mendy, Boateng, Hunt, Fagan, Barmby - but with no real idea what they're going to do with the ball as regards scoring goals.

What City need is someone to take the game by the proverbial scruff of the neck. One man who has the wit and ability to turn neat but innocuous passing into scruffy but goal-scoring football.

Cometh the hour, cometh the scruffy but goal-scoring Stephen Hunt.

On 70 minutes, Hunt drives forward with real pace down our left, towards the City fans. The defenders look unnerved. Hunt gets a cross in, which ends up on our right, from where Fagan expertly returns it into the area, straight onto the head of the diminutive Stephen Hunt who heads it firmly into the net.

2 - 1

And typical Hunt, he makes the chance, he follows it up. The only player we've had who regularly looks likely to get on the end of his own crosses. He more or less did that against Everton, he more or less did that last night in Bolton.

Now we know we're back in it. Hauling back a two goal deficit in the premier league? That's what we do. There's spirit in this City team.

On 74, Megson takes off Krasnic and brings on Gavin McCann, in the sort of `replace fancy foreigner with solid midfielder to hold onto 3 points' move which many a manager makes every week. But such is (by the time of writing, `was'), Megson's standing at Bolton that the boo-boys are ready and there is a chorus of pro-Krasnic chanting.

They certainly know how to get behind their team, these former Burnden boys. 2-1 up in a relegation 6-pointer, quarter of an hour to go, let's not bother with supporting the Wanderers, let's slag off our manager ...

Fine by me, fine by City, as we tear into the Trotters.

Phil Brown, never a man to follow fashion, has taken off solid but quiet midfielder Olofinjana, and replaced him with fancy foreigner Geovanni.

Hunt continues where he left off. On 75 he takes a corner which appears to strike a Bolton hand in the area, but appeals are curtailed as the ball falls to Barmby who tries an ambitious but weak overhead kick.

Hunt goes again, and on 78 we equalise. He crosses from the left. Or is it a shot? I think the former, as Barmby races in at the far post, accompanied by various Bolton defenders, one of whom makes the sort of despairing clearance that suddenly makes the City fans behind the goal realise that the ball might well have been over the line. City arms are raised in appealing for a goal. As one, the City fans behind the goal turn their heads to the linesman to our left. Yes! He's signalling that the ball was in, and running back towards the half way line.

2 - 2

With ten minutes or so to go, we now want 3 points, and look the more likely.

In a desparate attempt to spur on their team, the Bolton fans to our right unfurl a `Megson Out' banner.

The remaining minutes actually turn out to be fairly even. Fagan, having watched Barmby a few minutes earlier, tries to imitate his overhead kick, but fails badly. Then, in an echo of their second goal, Kevin Davies almost nips in ahead of Myhill as Gardner heads too weakly back to our keeper.

Bolton get a corner which they waste, and then on 89 minutes one of theirs fizzes a shot towards our goal which is deflected wide for another corner.

On 90 minutes though we have the chance which could have taken all three points back over the Pennines. Again it starts off down our left, Dawson passes to Hunt who crosses to Barmby on the right of the area. Barmby puts the ball back into the middle where Vennegoor of Hesselink hits it on the volley - but over the bar.

The 3 added minutes are extended to 5 as Fagan is hurt in a tackle. On 94 minutes, Bernard Mendy is booked for an awful, but effective, tackle on one of theirs. The resulting free kick, from the touchline on our right is, like so many other Bolton efforts, lofted vaguely and ineffectually into the box.

And then it's over.

A commendable point, and a fascinating game which brought out so many aspects of this current City team.

A point no use to either team? I disagree. The way we won that point last night bodes well for the second half of the season. There's a spirit about this City team, and its supporters, which was lacking amongst our Bolton counterparts yesterday.

But next up league-wise, it's Chelsea, Tottenham, and Manchester United again ...

HULL CITY (4-4-2): Myhill; Mendy, Zayatte, Gardner, Dawson; Garcia, Olofinjana, Boateng, Hunt; Altidore, Fagan.  Subs: Barmby (for Altidore, 55), Vennegoor of Hesselink (for Garcia, 64), Geovanni (for Olofinjana, 76), Ghilas, Kilbane, Mouyokolo, Duke.

Goals: Hunt 71, 78

Booked: Dawson, Mendy

Sent Off: None

BOLTON WANDERERS: Jaaskelainen, Knight, Cahill, Robinson,Steinsson, Cohen, Muamba, Taylor, Lee, K Davies, Klasnic.  Subs: McCann (for Klasnic, 75), Gardner, O'Brien, M Davies, Al Habsi, Elmander, Ricketts.

Goals: Klasnic 20; K Davies 61

Booked: McCann

Sent Off: None

REFEREE:    P Dowd

ATTENDANCE: 20,696