Dave’s Ramblings – Hull City

September 13, 2026 Admin

When this season’s fixtures were published, I don’t imagine many people looked at this game and thought, ‘Well, obviously Hull will be above us in the league.’ Yet here we are. Hull City. Above Chelsea.

I’ve checked the table twice, turned my phone upside down and briefly considered reporting it as a technical fault. 😂

Still, stranger things have happened in football. I just can’t immediately think of many.

I’m not paranoid as a rule, but I’m beginning to suspect there’s someone sitting in TfL headquarters with a Chelsea fixture list, a red pen and a personal vendetta.

Virtually shutting down the District line for today’s game is annoying enough. But they’re doing it again for Bournemouth. And then Spurs.

Three home games. Three attempts to make getting to Stamford Bridge resemble an episode of Race Across the World. At this point it can’t be engineering works. It’s personal.

As for the game… Hull continued their unbeaten start by taking full advantage of some Chelsea defending that should probably have come with a public-health warning. Gusto and Hato were especially culpable, spending large parts of the afternoon looking like two blokes who’d won a competition to play Premier League football. Badly.

Before the match, the Hull coach joked that the only way to stop our attack was to kick them. His players apparently mistook this for a detailed tactical briefing and carried it out with tremendous enthusiasm. If it moved, they kicked it. If it didn’t move, they waited until it did.

Unfortunately, while our forwards were being introduced to various parts of Hull’s footwear, the defence decided to stage its own tribute act to last season. Misplaced passes, disappearing markers and the sort of decision-making normally associated with six pints and a kebab at 2am.

Hull gratefully accepted the invitation and left with a point. I had hoped that performances like this had been consigned to last season. Apparently we’d just put them in the loft.

Seven minutes in and Rogers opened the scoring, wrong-footing a defender before burying a left-footed shot past the keeper. The first Premier League goal they’d conceded all season.

Weeks of defensive perfection, clean sheets and smug satisfaction… Morgan Rogers took seven minutes to ruin the entire bloody thing. 😂💙

Neto had a decent chance to put us further ahead before Hato briefly left the building, allowing Belloumi to volley home and make it 1–1.

That was apparently Hull’s cue to remember they were quite good. They hit the bar, the ball eventually found Belloumi again and his shot pinballed off Colwill and James before ending up in our net.

2–1 Hull. One shot, two Chelsea deflections and enough bad luck to suggest someone had driven a black cat under a ladder on the way to Stamford Bridge. 😂

Things simply had to improve after the break. Unfortunately, for a while Chelsea appeared to interpret that as more of a polite suggestion than an actual requirement. We huffed, puffed and repeatedly failed to blow Hull’s house down. In fact, they could easily have scored a third and put us out of our misery altogether.

Then, on 66 minutes, Palmer crossed and Pedro leathered a left-footer inside the near post. 2–2. Stamford Bridge erupted. Partly in celebration, partly relief and partly because 40,000 people had just remembered how to breathe again. 😂💙

We had plenty of chances to take the lead after that but unfortunately, we’d left our finishing boots wherever we’d apparently left our ability to defend.

Ironically, the best chance fell to Hull a few minutes from the end. Thankfully, after watching our defending for 90 minutes, they appeared to take pity on us and produced a tame effort that was comfortably saved.

In truth, a draw was probably fair. It’s just frustrating that our defence continues to be less a weak link and more an open invitation, with refreshments provided.

Perhaps it might help if we settled on a formation and occasionally picked the same defenders twice. They could learn each other’s names, discover where everyone is supposed to stand and, who knows, eventually gel.

At the moment, our back line has all the cohesion of four strangers who’ve met in the queue for a replacement bus service.

My takeaways…

I loved how respectful the minute’s applause for Aggy was. I’m not entirely convinced everyone knew why they were clapping. A few people asked me halfway through, presumably worried they’d accidentally applauded a substitution. But they joined in, and that’s what mattered. Aggy was a top bloke, one of the good ones and he’ll always be very much missed. 💙

Bad and inconsistent refereeing seems to have become as much a part of watching Chelsea as overpriced beer and wondering what the hell our defence is doing.

It wasn’t why we dropped points, but the application of the rules continues to be completely baffling. Their keeper regularly took longer over his kicks than I did deciding whether to retire. The referee’s count generally began sometime around the point everyone was considering making alternative arrangements for Christmas.

Free kicks? Hull pinched so many yards they were practically taking them from a different postcode. Throw-ins were conducted at roughly the same speed as a state funeral. Nothing.

Yet we’ve been punished for exactly the same offences. Apparently the Laws of the Game aren’t so much laws these days as helpful suggestions. They are interpreted according to mood, weather conditions and which referee remembered to bring his glasses.

Why can’t every referee simply apply the same rules in the same way? It shouldn’t be that difficult.

I realise I’m beginning to sound like a Scouser now. I’ll stop before I demand an independent inquiry, write to my MP and release a 12-part Netflix documentary. Probably called, ‘This Means More: The Throw-In That Took 37 Seconds.’

My final comment (or moan, seeing as I appear to have fully embraced my transformation into Victor Meldrew with a season ticket) relates to set pieces.

I’m sure I read that we’ve actually employed someone specifically to deal with them. If that’s true, can somebody check his annual leave entitlement? Because I’m beginning to suspect he’s currently on a six-month all-inclusive in the Maldives.

Our free kicks don’t appear noticeably better, while defending set pieces and throw-ins seems to have actually gone backwards. Given that we’re off to Brentford next, a team who regard a throw-in as roughly equivalent to a guided missile, this is mildly terrifying.

Perhaps my expectations are ridiculously high. I wasn’t expecting the new management team to have fixed all our issues. I just hoped that we might occasionally look as though everyone had attended the same training session.

Still, onwards to Brentford. What could possibly go wrong? Actually, don’t answer that.

Photos are here https://www.flickr.com/gp/jtba/30C3wbhy8C

UTC

Dave