A poor City performance in the cold, worsened by a poor decision to send off George Boateng in the first half, saw City crash to a deflating defeat.

Report by Paul Atkin.

After watching city perform at the very best for the last two games, our greatest home performances since promotion to the top league and a trip to Blackburn where we picked up our first away point of many last season I was brimming with glass half full optimism. Do we ever learn when it comes to City the glass was drained dry, washed and put back on the shelf many years ago. Where a few days ago deciding on a man of the match was tricky due to the amount of good performances tonight was all about who made the least errors and a card happy referee.

So the apprentices wizards travelled to master Sams castle with an unchanged line up on the back of a three match unbeaten run:

Myhill
McShane Mouyokolo Gardner Dawson
Fagan Cairney Boateng Hunt
Altidore Big Jan

We actually started more with a 0-0-0-11 formation and a minutes respectful silence, although when the ref blew his whistle to get tonight's proceedings underway City pretty much continued to show their respects for a further 45 minutes. Blackburn took the early initiative by generally bullying us witch they did for most of the game but can't have been unexpected. They played long ball knocked it out to the wings and put in a few decent crosses, they seem to have added a long throw to their armoury witch we dealt with badly for most of the game. A couple of good defensive blocks by Cairney and a free kick turned over the bar by Myhill meant we survived early pressure and started to put a few moves together ourselves. A Mouyokolo free kick headed back across the box by big jan was hit over the bar by Hunt, Minutes later a good ball through by Hunt was fired goal wards by Hesslihink and brought a rare diving save out Robinson. Boateng was unable to match the weekends goal and fired over shortly afterwards.

Then our moment of calamity, Mcshane did ok holding his man up at halfway but a simple ball down the wing and Fagan deciding the best way to stop Olsons run was to gently jog next to him while waving a white flag. He skipped unchallenged into the box the ball bobbled and any chance seemed to have gone, tight angle keeper covering the front post, but oh no a bit of a slice Myhill does his best acrobatic display of tiring to dive around the ball but it catches his ankle during the 3rd phase of his triple sulko and ends up in the bottom corner.

I had hoped to use the largely formless line and the 15 minutes following the goal gave me ample opportunity it really was a game of hit and hope from both teams. Blackburn suddenly caused bother from a long threw and offered a decent effort from distance, this woke us up and we got three quick corners in succession and came close on the first.

Then the moment that condemned us to nil points a fairly innocuous clash of heads at halfway, both players lay holding there heads, but the ref wanders to the prostate Boateng checks his airway, ensures the absence of severe spinal chord injury and brandishes a red card. Not normal first aid I grant you and most of the City team surround the ref and point this out, explaining how the use of an elbow into an opponent rarely leads to concussion of the attacker, especially one the size of Boateng.

Now we are in shit street, we need a hero to step up and save us, a Man U loanee or a Skippy to save us from the mine but if we had one he hopped off into the Blackburn hill sometime before kick off.

A change just before half time as Oli replaces Big Jan, to shore up a midfield that really was generally been bypassed by both teams.

HT 0-1

We kick off the second half a bit brighter and try to pass the ball around but soon loose it and Mcshane dives in to a reckless tackle and earns a deserved Yellow. Blackburn enjoy most of the ball for the next 10 minutes managing a couple of feeble efforts from distance. Altidore gets himself stupidly booked for failing to retreat 10 yds after several warnings, summed up his day he was largely ineffective and Nelson had clearly cast a spell on him for the second half as he won little in the air.

Substitutions were clearly needed and 20 odd minutes in they came, Brown realised he had to pull a rabbit from the hat or show a slight of hand but no Cooperesque magic from Mr Brown he went straight for the Copperfield prestige act. Off came Dawson and McShane looking somewhat puzzled to be replaced by Zayette and Zaki. A new formation of 3-4-1 and Big Sam remembering some old maxim of gift horses and dentists couldn't resist putting on the speedy Roberts.

This led to an instant change in the game as Blackburn carved into us with a number of clear chances to double their lead, Myhill remembering the Spurs game pulled of a series of good saves to keep us in the game.

Zaki meanwhile was like a juggler who knowing he had no chance of keeping four balls in the air at once attempted to start out with just the one we were using and found that it generally bounced of him, over him or through him. To say he was off the pace was somewhat kind.

Fagan finally put in a cross of some merit and Zaki was brought down on the edge of the box, the ref marched back ten yards watched the Blackburn wall position themselves a couple of feet ahead of him and decided that was near enough. Zaki hit a weak effort well over the bar.

A few sporadic half breaks for city but no real chances and a couple of attempts to score into our own net to end the misery took us to 4 minutes stoppage time and the inevitable all out attack of the loosing side. Well no we managed a couple of tired looking attacks and the final whistle blew to the general relief of our players.

We looked generally tired tonight and lacked any genuine quality on the ball, loosing our best player in the first half didn't help, but we have a 10 day rest, hopefully an appeal on the sending off and maybe the City side we see at West Ham is the one who excited us so against Chelsea and Man City. The Glass has a drop left and maybe some kind soul will top it up again before the seasons end.

HULL CITY (4-4-2): Myhill; McShane, Mouyokolo, Gardner, Dawson; Fagan, Boateng, Cairney, Hunt; Vennegoor of Hesselink, Altidore.  Subs: Olofinjana (for Vennegoor of Hesselink, 44), Zaki (for McShane, 67), Zayatte (for Dawson, 67), Kilbane, Barmby, Garcia, Duke.

Goals: None

Booked: Altidore, Gardner, McShane

Sent Off: Boateng

BLACKBURN ROVERS: Robinson, Nelsen, Olsson, Salgado, Emerton, Givet, Pedersen, N'Zonzi, Diouf, Andrews, Kalanic.  Subs: Roberts (for Emerton, 70), Reid (for Kalanic, 89), Chimbonda, Di Santo, Hoilett, Jones, Brown.

Goals: Myhill (og) 16

Booked: Nelsen

Sent Off: None

REFEREE:    L Probert

ATTENDANCE: 23,518