Steve Bruce cannot afford to ignore the task at hand if Hull City are to avoid Premier League relegation

As Hull City face up to the very real possibility of relegation, Jonathan Wilson explains why the squad and manager Steve Bruce must pull together to survive.

Hull City and manager Steve Bruce, left, no longer have their Premier League destiny in their own hands. Richard Heathcote / Getty
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All the televisions at Hull’s KC Stadium last Saturday before the game between Hull City and Burnley showed the first leg of the Championship play-off match between Ipswich Town and Norwich City.

When journalists in the press room asked if it was possible to watch the Everton-Sunderland Premier League match, they were told that the Hull manager Steve Bruce had banned it.

Maybe he just wanted to watch Norwich, the club he joined from Gillingham in 1984, but more likely he feared that what ended up happening would happen.

Sometimes the statistics do not give a true impression of a game but, in this case, they did: Everton had 16 corners to Sunderland’s one and 22 shots to Sunderland’s 10.

Everton hit the post and also probably should have had a penalty, yet Sunderland won 2-0, the first goal taking a deflection, the second taking two deflections before going in off Jermain Defoe’s hand.

Even Dick Advocaat accepted that his side had been extremely fortunate.

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But lucky or not, it was a win that lifted Sunderland out of the bottom three and dropped Hull into it after they lost 1-0 to Burnley.

Relegation battles are often about momentum, sudden reversals or unexpected results that change the course of the season.

When Hull beat Crystal Palace away and Liverpool at home at the end of April, it seemed things were tipping its way.

Sunderland, after the boost of a derby win on Advocaat’s first home game, had been hammered at home by Crystal Palace and looked doomed — along with Burnley and Queen’s Park Rangers, whose fates were confirmed last weekend.

In the weeks leading up to the Burnley game, Hull had not done a huge amount wrong.

Their home defeat against Arsenal was expected, but after Sunderland had fortuitously beaten Everton in that lunchtime kick-off, Hull were in the relegation zone.

That seemed to cast a pall over the afternoon as they toiled against Burnley and results elsewhere went against them.

Bruce afterwards was dejected, seeming mystified by his side’s lack of fight.

Hull, somehow, have to find renewed energy for the away game at Tottenham Hotspur and the game at home to Manchester United next week, knowing that while two draws may possibly be enough if other results go their way, realistically they must win one of their matches to have a chance of staying up.

All Hull can do is try to apply pressure and hope.

Tottenham have been in awful form recently — just one win in their past six, and that against Newcastle — and they may be vulnerable.

Manchester United, similarly, have declined in form since Michael Carrick was injured in the derby. Both sides, even though they are in the top six, are very ­beatable.

But if Hull are to survive, they will have to find a resilience and a fight that was lacking last week — and they, and their fans, have to believe that relegation is not inevitable, which will take more than just turning off the televisions.

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