...can you tell me whether Wigan played as well as the scoreline indicates. How good is the new guy Zaki?
Right, especially for you
swiftaw...
Wigan performed well, as the scoreline suggests – and Zaki looks to be quite a useful acquisition for you. There were a few questions on the way out about whether his second goal crossed the line (it was one of those ones that hits the underside of the cross bar and bounces down and out) but our position in the East Stand afforded us an excellent view of it and it did indeed cross the line.
I think the two main problems we had this afternoon were that we afforded you way too much time on the ball, and secondly you were too strong and fast on the counter attack. In particular, with Gardner being out Wayne Brown stepped up to fill the gap in the centre of defence and he was absolutely skinned when it came to pace. He's not the fastest of players in the first place, mind, and this was exploited to the full. Couple all of this with us wasting some promising chances in front of goal and it all adds up to a pretty poor day in the office. I think we also really missed King (who couldn't play today as he's on loan from Wigan) and his ability to hold the ball up.
I think on balance the defeat was probably heavier than we deserved, but it's a timely and harsh reminder for us of the high level of performance we need to put in week in, week out. Hopefully a few lessons have been learned and we can come back with some more positive displays. I can accept losing to a better side on the day (as long as it's a fair loss, I don't like cheating), so I don't begrudge Wigan their win by any means.
Highlight of the afternoon
The light aircraft that spent a good portion of the match circling the KC with a big banner, advertising BT's current offer of free games on Setanta if you sign up to their broadband package. Of course, it was amusingly pointless them going to the expense and effort of doing this, seeing as how Hull is the only place in the UK where you can't get a BT phone line.
Lowlight of the afternoon
Away from the pitch, it was disappointing to see the number of people heading for the exits with ten minutes remaining. Granted, us coming back and recording a famous victory was looking a tad unlikely (I'd have settled for a point at this stage, myself
), but if there's one thing that really does annoy me it's people sidling out complaining when the team needs their support.
