Anyone who envies the life of a Premier League manager should have been in a corridor under Selhurst Park’s Holmesdale End after Saturday’s match. A win for Hull City had kept them just above the relegation places but the result could, if the referee, Mark Clattenburg, had seen key incidents differently, have been a draw or even a defeat that would have left them in the bottom three.
Steve Bruce talked of his frustration as “fine margins” went against his Hull team in previous matches, the misery of wasted chances and the unseen efforts that went into the deadline-day signing of Dame N’Doye, the striker who contrived an astonishing miss before scoring twice to settle the match. Alan Pardew, whose team theoretically had had little to play for, looked morose and confessed he was bemused by Crystal Palace’s non-performance even though he could be forgiven for sitting back and planning where to spend Palace’s next share of TV riches.
Bruce can afford no such luxuries. Hull have five games left, four against European contenders beginning with Liverpool’s visit on Tuesday and one against their relegation rivals Burnley, which guarantee more sleepless nights pondering team selection. “I picked two or three teams for today but thankfully got the right one,” Bruce said. “So I hope that continues. The players have to keep believing and they have to stay calm.
“We are all anxious, we all want to stay in this division. And thankfully for me they produced a performance. But then again we played very, very well against Chelsea, got beat 3-2 – not good enough. We played very, very well against Southampton but didn’t take our chances and gave away a penalty – game over. So they are fine margins in the Premier League.”
N’Doye made the difference on Saturday, his goals giving the team a rare win without the injured Nikica Jelavic. One first-half miss mocked the match programme’s description of the Senegalese as a “star striker” but his growing strength in the second half showed why Bruce had flown to Paris on deadline day to clinch the signing from Lokomotiv Moscow of a player with Champions League experience for “a couple of million”. N’Doye was in the right place to convert Robbie Brady’s pass after 51 minutes and finished expertly in injury time after putting a good chance wide 10 minutes earlier.
“Footballers are often criticised for being mercenary but he took a substantial wage cut to join us,” Bruce said. “The power of the Premier League is huge and the boy wanted to play there. I saw him five years ago for Copenhagen. I tried to buy him then, couldn’t because of a work permit. I’ve got him at 30, not at 25, but it’s been worth it.
“We all thought after that [first-half miss]: ‘Is it going to be one of those days again?’. Thankfully he’s had the courage to keep getting there which is what all good strikers need. And it was good to see him tuck it away in the last minute. He should have done it in the 80th and put us all out of our misery but we got there in the finish.”
Now Bruce wonders whether his pre-match estimate of two more victories will guarantee safety. “I thought 35 points would be enough but with ourselves and Leicester on 31 we are capable of getting four points and dragging Newcastle into the situation.” Newcastle, you may remember, are the club Bruce supported as a boy. Who’d be a football manager?
Man of the match: Dame N’Doye (Hull)
