Aston Villa fans turn up the heat on defiant Paul Lambert after latest defeat

http://www.theguardian.com/football/2015/feb/11/aston-villa-fans-paul-lambert-aston-villa-hull

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Paul Lambert brought up an unwanted half-century in charge of Aston Villa as Hull City overcame their own hoodoo against their relegation rivals to plunge them into the bottom three.

There was certainly no raising of the bat for this 50 – the number of Premier League losses he has suffered in his 101 matches as manager. Instead a banner was unfurled which simply read “Lambert Out” as the inevitability of the result was confirmed by Hull’s second goal, lifted into the net from close range by the full debutant Dame N’Doye, 16 minutes from time.

Hull boasted the worst home record in the Premier League before this contest but coasted to victory despite a lack of fluency to their own game following a run of only two wins in 17. Yet, that sorry statistic was trumped by a Villa team that has now scored only six times in 20 top-flight road trips. Only in injury time, when Allan McGregor produced a splendid double save from Ashley Westwood and the substitute Christian Benteke did they look like improving it.

Related: Hull City 2-0 Aston Villa | Premier League match report

Throughout their slide down the table – they were top in heady August – Lambert has maintained an unshakeable belief that Villa will not go down. He reiterated it here, although there was also the admission that his side may have to rethink their way of playing having dropped into the drop zone for the first time in 2014-15.

“I totally 100% believe that the football club will be fine. There’s good players in the dressing room, we are just missing that little bit in the final third,” Lambert said. “These are the biggest 13 games of our careers coming up. Everybody is going to have to show character from me right down. Big players rise to it anyway and this will be a test for everybody. This is not a time for pretty football. You have to win ugly. No matter how we do it we have to win.”

Hull are moving in the opposite direction after ending a sequence of nine defeats and a draw against Villa. Buoyed by the weekend point at champions Manchester City, they went in front for the second match in a row when N’Doye – a £2.2m signing from Lokomotiv Moscow – slipped in Nikica Jelavic with a disguised pass and the ball ballooned over the visiting goalkeeper Brad Guzan from Ciaran Clark’s attempted block.

Steve Bruce, the Hull manager, was full of praise for the Senegal striker, who he met personally in Paris on transfer deadline day to force through his move to the Premier League. A fine first start by N’Doye was crowned when, after winning a free-kick in an advanced position, he emerged at the far post to seize on a knock-down and force the ball beyond Guzan at the second attempt.

“There are not many players who take a significant wage cut to come and play in England but he wanted to do that to show his skills and that was a fantastic debut,” Bruce said.

While N’Doye beefed up the top end of Hull’s team, the fingerprints of their other January “signing” Mike Phelan, Bruce’s former Manchester United team-mate, were evident at the defensive end as the Yorkshire club reverted to three at the back. “When you bring in a new assistant or a new centre-forward the art of management is picking right. With Mick’s knowhow and experience it was a no-brainer. He was at the biggest and best club for something like 19 years, five of them as assistant, so of course he was going to put his stamp on it,” Bruce said.

Villa dominated possession, particularly in the quarter-hour after Benteke was introduced from the bench, but their lack of creativity must be Lambert’s greatest concern. The relegation fears of the travelling support no doubt intensified by defeat in a proverbial six-pointer.

In his programme notes, Bruce had termed this a “mammoth” match for both clubs. “Psychologically to come out of the bottom three was key. In the end it was quite comfortable,” he said later. Not so for Villa, who would have lost by an even greater margin had Hull substitute Abel Hernández retained his composure on a three-on-one breakaway towards the death rather than slice wide.