It’s going to be tricky to find anything interesting to highlight in this game. Well, we won. There you go. 3 more points in the bag and back up to 4th stretching our unbeaten run to 8 games – the 4th time MON’s Villa have achieved such a run and with the most points (18).

As I mentioned in my preview for this game, Hull are a team in free fall right now and need to stop the rot in any way they can. So as expected the game started in fairly innocuous fashion, neither side looked like they wanted to come out firing. Within a few minutes Brad Friedel rose to catch a looping cross, collided with Nicky Barmby and in the mix-up that followed the ball ended up in the back of the net. Friedel lay with his face in the turf, knowing this was a “bit of a howler”. However, he was shaken out of his dismay by the referee’s whistle who had disallowed the goal and awarded a free kick.

If I’m honest, I didn’t see a whole lot wrong with the challenge, but we’ve all seen these given countless times. No special treatment here, referees are fairly consistent in blowing up over the slightest contact on the keeper. Right or wrong, it’s almost always the same result.

It was a let off for sure though. I hoped the lads would apply a bit of pressure, play like they knew this Hull side were more than capable of scoring. That didn’t happen, the rest of the half played out with Villa stringing passes across the park without ever advancing much. Hull were happy to sit back and soak up the non-pressure. By the half time break Villa had used their 65% possession to create exactly 3 shots on goal, not one on target though. Lots of passing, but no real threat on goal. Personally I wasn’t concerned, we’re very much a second half team and patience is something we now have in abundance.

The second half didn’t quite go as expected. Hull opened up a bit, played a little bit of football. Villa didn’t capitalise in the slightest. In fact, it’s fair to say that Hull had the better of the half. No major chances, but if you were forced to pick a side that might nick it as it came down to the wire you’d probably have picked Hull.

And then in the 88th minute Ashley Young turned Ricketts on the right and whipped in a wicked ball to the near post and a waiting Gabby. Zayatte tried to stop what was surely a certain goal and turned the ball into his own net. Another late winner from the Villa!!

After the game finally ignited into some drama it wasn’t about to end so soon. 3 minutes into injury time a Hull corner was headed on to the crossbar. Steve Bennett initially pointed to spot for what looked like a handball by Ashley Young off the line. Almost the entire villa team surrounded him in protest. Gareth Barry went to speak to the linesman. MON patrolled the technical area in shock. Finally Bennett went to speak to the linesman, who must have confirmed that the ball had rebounded off the bar without touching Ash’s hand. Credit to the referee, he then changed his mind and awarded a goal kick.

This was a very confusing and nervous minute or so. It’s not often you see a referee change his mind and I’m sure questions will be asked about the nature of the Villans protest. However, the right decision was reached and a minute later the final whistle closed out what was otherwise a pretty forgettable game.

So once again we have an away day smash and grab. Nothing to get carried away with, but we are back to 4th and we do have 38 points (only 1 point less than our best performance after 20 Permiership games!!) Sure we’ve ridden our luck a little recently, but you make your own luck in this game. Winning the lottery is lucky, but your chances of winning increase significantly when you actually buy a ticket.