Brown - We punished ourselves

Tigers boss adamant his players can bounce back

By Hayley Paterson   Last updated: 20th February 2010   Subscribe to RSS Feed

Brown - We punished ourselves

Brown: Miserable day

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Phil Brown wants to forget Hull City's 3-0 defeat against West Ham which he put down to costly mistakes from his own players and believes Craig Fagan's sending-off was "ridiculous".

The Tigers boss admitted that unnecessary errors compounded his side's misery as Valon Behrami, Carlton Cole and Julien Faubert capitalised on a nervy City side at Upton Park.

Brown told Sky Sports his players put themselves under pressure which brought another away defeat this season.

"It wasn't a case of not being committed, it was just the case of the thought process of a lot of the decisions that were going on out there," he said.

"It looked like a lot of the players were playing with a lot of pressure on their shoulders and it certainly wasn't the pressure that we had heaped on them. It was the pressure that they put on themselves with the start that we had.

"We've worked on getting the ball into the front two, we've worked on the possibility of West Ham leaving two versus two at the back, we've worked on where the space was to play into the space and the space was certainly behind the West Ham centre-halves today but we didn't do it."

Robbed

City barely had time to get their tactics together when Behrami opened the scoring in the third minute after Andy Dawson was robbed on the ball.

But despite the early setback the Tigers showed their best form towards the final stages of the half when George Boateng was denied an equaliser by the fingertips of Rob Green.

However Brown's men were dealt an uphill task early in the second half when Fagan was sent-off for a second bookable offence which the City boss said was "ridiculous".

"It's one-nil and they've got their tails up, the crowd get behind them and before you know it, it's going to be a tough day," he said.

"But it's compounded with a ridiculous sending-off and inexcusable behaviour at times."

Suspected fracture

Hull suffered further bad luck when Cole slotted in the second of the game and City were then left with nine men when Anthony Gardner was stretchered off with a suspected leg fracture and Andy Dawson had to stay on the field and battle through a painful gashed knee.

However Brown feels his side can bounce back from their latest league defeat and believes they can still survive the drop.

"We still have a big bite of the cherry. We've got plenty of games to go," he added.

"Performances like this have to be put on the backburner, fortunately for us in the last four or five games they have been uncharacteristic."

He went on: "Today was certainly not one for the purists in terms of Hull City fans and the sooner we put this behind us the better."