A half-paced Fulham are swept aside by an organised Dowie-led City side and coupled with a West Ham defeat the relegaton battle is emphatically back on.

Report by Steve Weatherill.

It's not the despair that kills us, it's the hope. And as the final whistle sounded and we digested this win, the scoreboard scrolled slowly down to reveal that West Ham had been beaten at home by Stoke - and there she was again, that haggard cackling imposter taunting us once more with vain aspirations of safety. Hope. Wicked, deceitful ... irresistible.

There is life, and so there is hope, and our Premier League status staggers on. Played 69, won 13 out of 67 (Brown, P), won 1 out of 2 (Dowie, I). In the relegation places only on goal difference (albeit by a huge margin that cannot be quantitatively eased), game in hand, kinder run-in than our principal rivals who are, to boot, owned by a pair of preening pornographers whose lust for publicity outweighs all concern for the good health of their club.

Hope.

I expect it to end in tears all the same, but, y'know. Just maybe ... Breathing life into the corpse:

Myhill
McShane Sonko Mouyokolo Kilbane
Garcia Bullard Boateng Marney
Fagan Altidore

Lack of width is the defining feature of this line-up. From Dr Dowie we expect no frills, and no frills we get. He sent out this team to stay organised, fight hard, defend stuffily and pinch a goal - or two. And it worked, all of it. Hurrah for Mr Dowie. Hurrah too for the fixture list. We had the weakest team in the league last week, and still lost, but this week the plum was even plumper, a club with a thin squad which has just lost a draining Cup replay and is getting ready for its first ever UEFA Cup Quarter Final. This trip to Hull was a trivial inconvenience for the Cottagers, and how it showed. Few of their first-team appeared, and they fielded no competent attackers at all. If we could play them every week it would be a delight, though unfortunately most of our rivals get to play them in the next few weeks too, so this soft win may not deliver the relative advantage we need.

Off we go, after an offensively stupid rendition of Sunderland's 'Wise Men Say' anthem over the tannoy, and a generally tame and shapeless opening to the match is unintentionally mocked by a tatty Hull City flag, upside down and inside out, limping its way round the ground, held aloft by inexpert hands. Watch the game, eh? Support the team? Does modern football really have to be made so difficult?

Boaz saves a low shot from Gera after 4 minutes but, that apart, the game is featureless. There's no pace to the play, and it is a surprise when, after quarter of an hour, a decisive moment intervenes. Bullard slips a ball into the box, Altidore is well placed but is clumsily hauled back and referee Foy, well positioned, has no hesitation in awarding a penalty. Bullard thumps the spot-kick unstoppably high into the net with the glee of a Catholic priest asked to supervise a teenaged boys' swimming competition and already our lead feels big enough to swat aside this feeble Fulham line-up.

Still, you don't have to have watched an awful lot of Hull City this season to know that we can conjure danger even out of the least threatening of opponents and on 27 the giant Hangeland heads the ball down for Gera, in gaping amounts of space deep inside our box, to trundle a low shot past Myhill. Equaliser? Not while George is around. Boateng's game lately has been a mix of the reckless and the majestic, and here he veers towards the latter pole with a marvellously dogged goal-line clearance.

On 32 Bullard strikes a decent free-kick but Schwarzer is able to save low to his right and frankly the Aussie keeper would have been badly at fault had he allowed the ball to elude him. Not enough pace or power on the shot. I feel that about Bullard's game generally since his return from injury. I don't think he's physically confident any more, I don't think he ever will be.

On 36 Gera looms again but a fly off the line by Mouyokolo rescues the situation and the match trickles calmly towards half time. 3 added, half-time duly reached. 1-0 up. Hoping.

The sun's out for the second half, the sort of thin dramatic device that might appeal to Thomas Hardy or Ted Hughes but not to your sterling troupe of tiger-chat match reporters who are made of artistically sterner stuff. The sun really was out. And we really are winning. No word of a lie. And on 48 we were two to the good.

Craig Fagan did it. He waited as a looping cross drifted towards the back of the box where he was lurking like a predatory fox, sleek of coat, ruthless mien, and he cushioned an elegant header which traced a graceful arc across the awed penalty area, above the astounded Schwarzer, and the ball sighed happily as it reached its intended destination, the inner side-netting of the Fulham goal.

Yes, very much the sort of thing that the mighty Fagan has been doing week in, week out, for the duration of our Premier League career.

Ahem. No really, if you hadn't seen Fagan play before, you'd've marvelled at the audacity of the conception and the beauty of the execution. If you had seen him before - well, you could only laugh. It was just a terrific, if wholly unexpected, goal.

Then Marney beat four men with a flourish before striking an imperious cross-field pass with the outside of the left boot ... No, OK, I'm making that up. But the Fagan stuff, that really happened. Well played Craig Fagan.

In normal circumstances opponents suffering as badly as Fulham might have been expected to react with righteous anger or at least some degree of energy as the true scale of their disgrace began to emerge, but instead, in an appealing homage to the Vatican, the visitors quietly moved a few people into different positions and hoped no one would notice. And no one did really - though supporters of other clubs in the relegation battle might be horrified at Fulham's tame acquiescence were they ever to inspect the full evidence of this match.

An Irish/Brazilian chap named O'Kaka was brought on and, as he trotted across the pitch to take up position in the Fulham attack, he was courteously greeted by a forearm smash delivered brutally by McShane. Happily Mr Foy didn't notice this - or, if he did, he treated it as a subtle reminder that SKY's Wrestlemania is on the TV skyline just now - but Mr O'Kaka certainly did, and spent the rest of his afternoon going nowhere near City's defence or the football. Shortly afterwards Dikgacoi was substituted, perhaps the fattest worstest midfielder ever unleashed on the Premier League, and replaced by Jonathan Greening, a fine player who kindly treated his thirty minutes in Hull as a gentle training spin. Fulham are having an extraordinary season, and ten days ago they beat Juventus 4-1. Not playing like this they didn't.

57, Jozy powers along the by-line, Schwarzer fubles, recovers. Altidore's displays this season at home to Everton, Man City and now Fulham come close to recalling the unstoppable force that was (briefly) the beastly legend of Jon Parkin, and if the American could deploy that strength more consistently while also continuing to work on his (improving) first touch and his (minimal) understanding of how to hold the ball up then he will be a fine player. He did well yesterday and the Fulham defenders will be bruised this morning. Have Manchester United really paid ten million quid for Chris Smalling? That's a lot of green and yellow scarves.

On 59 Fulham put together a modestly competent passing move which culminated in O'Kaka finding himself close to the ball by mistake but his shot was safely held by Boaz, and that largely brought to an end any hint of the visitors as an attacking force. All the remained to them was a melee in our box on 73 - but even then none of their players seem especially concerned to stick a boot in and risk injury. The ball is cleared fairly easily.

The game lacks pace and shape, and that suits us just fine as we shepherd it towards a winning conclusion. Jozy departs reluctantly in favour of JVoH - Altidore wants, and deserves, a goal but he's already had a yellow card and is the target of some calculated fouling, so Mr Dowie is right to give him a break. Bullard makes way for Olofinjana who looks utterly out of sorts, and gives the ball away a lot. Fulham usually give it back. 3 added minutes, JVoH is plainly fouled in the box during them, but there's no whistle until the final one. And we've won.

At this stage of the season all we want is points, and worrying too much about where they come from is daft. Fulham were perfect opponents - well, whatever, we've got 3 more points now, and we're back, err, hoping. Sonko was excellent - a full-length diving header to clear late in the game was breathtaking - and his display strengthens the argument that Phil Brown is a good coach, but a poor manager. Dumping a player with Sonko's ability was a wastefully premature decision. Boateng is doing what Ashbee has done for us for so long, while Marney didn't do much wrong yesterday - steeplingly high praise indeed. Fagan performed his celebrated impression of a West Highland terrier, and on top of yapping his grumpy way all over the pitch, he scored as well.

The hope is genetically programmed to revert to despair, I think. But there is hope, and we take it now to Stoke where lately we don't lose.

HULL CITY (4-4-2): Myhill; McShane, Sonko, Mouyokolo, Kilbane; Garcia, Bullard, Boateng, Marney; Altidore, Fagan.  Subs: Vennegoor of Hesselink (for Altidore, 79), Olofinjana (for Bullard, 86), Geovanni, Barmby, Mendy, Cairney, Duke.

Goals: Bullard (pen) 16; Fagan 48

Booked: Altidore, Kilbane

Sent Off: None

FULHAM: Schwarzer, Knochesky, Hangeland, Baird, Smalling, Shorey, Gera, Dempsey, Davies, Riise, Dikgacoi.  Subs: Okaka (for Riise, 53), Greening (for Dikgacoi, 59), Etuhu, Zuberbuhler, Nevland, Hughes, Stoor.

Goals: None

Booked: Davies, Dikgacoi, Gera, Shorey

Sent Off: None

REFEREE:    C Foy

ATTENDANCE: 24,361