There is no gentle landing that drops a club to the bottom of the table for Christmas, but for Hull City the thud feels horribly jarring. They were anything but second-best to West Ham United and by the time they conceded the goal that has left them 20th in the table, they had three times come within centimetres, the width of a goalpost, of taking the lead.
The snatching of all the points seemed cruel, too. Mark Noble converted a penalty awarded for an offence, by Tom Huddlestone on Michail Antonio, that on another day, with another referee, might have passed unpunished. There are no small mercies in such circumstances but, as away defeats go, this was a performance that Hull loyalists could make the long journey home from with less despair than most. Spurs had beaten Hull in London 3-0 in midweek, and normally the margins are of that size, or worse. In seven successive losses on the road they have let in 20 goals.
Yet it was Hull who made much the better impression on a sluggish first half. It took them about a quarter of an hour to sniff out a stagnation about West Ham, and decide they might take advantage. The busy Sam Clucas set up Dieumerci Mbokani with a chance to shoot and the Congolese struck wide. The effect was apparently to unnerve the home team.
“There were times when the atmosphere, never easy to rouse in the Olympic stadium, had wheezed into hear-a-pin-drop quiet
Aaron Cresswell, under no great constraint of pressure, played a feeble back pass towards Darren Randolph and all but invited Mbokani to intercept it. His reactions were alert, but his first-time effort, with Randolph drawn into no man’s land, a fraction faulty. Mbokani’s chip came off the inside of the West Ham post and the ball bobbled tantalising across the face of an unguarded goal.
Mbokani worried West Ham in the air, too, as did Harry Maguire, the powerful centre-half. Meeting Robert Snodgrass’s corner, Maguire thumped a header towards the upper corner of Randolph’s goal, the keeper preventing the effort creeping in. Randolph would make another save from Maguire, this time when the defender drove from outside the penalty area, first to reach a clearance.
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By half time, Maguire had developed quite an appetite for the opportunities at the end of the pitch where he usually spends much less of his time. Pedro Obiang needed to intervene swiftly to snuff out a Maguire safari that had taken the player to a position to tee up a shot.
To that list of edgy moments could be added Mbokani’s volley, after deftly taking a high ball on to his chest, and hurried shots by Clucas and Jake Livermore. All were directed well off target. West Ham’s first-half threats had been much rarer, David Marshall scarcely occupied in the Hull goal other than to pouch a long-range Dmitri Payet free kick. And a full hour went by before Andy Carroll directed a header on target.
West Ham needed re-animating. There had been times when the atmosphere, never easy to rouse in the Olympic stadium, had wheezed into hear-a-pin-drop quiet. When that happens, the grumbles soon follow, and there was audible exasperation after around 20 minutes. Slaven Bilic had recognised change was needed by the interval. Neither Obiang nor Manuel Lanzini, the latter having taken a knock, reappeared after that, replaced by Edimilson Fernandes and Andre Ayew.
Both would help raise the pulse of the contest. Ayew’s header was cleared off the goal-line by Andrew Robertson; Fernandes was doing the same moments later, leaping to stop Maguire nodding Hull in front. City were entitled to believe they deserved to be ahead by then, Robertson having watched his piledriver ping back off Randolph’s left post and the same player having seen his cross deflected by Noble onto the base of West Ham’s other upright.
Luckless Hull? They felt so when Huddlestone, one of several in the Hull penalty box struggling under a high, bouncing ball, clutched the hip of Antonio and was judged to have fouled him. Noble rolled the spot kick to Marshall’s left. The keeper had dived the other way.