Silva sorrow and escape for Big Sam
THERE will come a time when Marco Silva digs out the footage of the game that relegated Hull City and realise there was only so much he could do.
The evidence is right there, three minutes into this match. The ball was sitting up, ready to be launched to a distant postcode when Andrea Ranocchia, his centre-half, took a big old swing. Missed it, not even a glance; air and nothing else.
That was the moment, the time of realisation. When an Italian international with 21 caps cannot co-ordinate foot to ball for the purpose of a hoofed clearance, it is time to pack up. Do not pass go, do not collect £100million.
Some miracles simply aren’t meant to be granted. Some causes are meant to stay lost.
And so it came to pass that Wilfried Zaha went through on goal and Crystal Palace were quarter of the way to the 4-0 hammering that saved one team and relegated another.
Silva, for his part, could only look to the heavens. He did it throughout this game as he has throughout his four months at the club, but here he got only static.
The Portuguese has shaken up Hull since his arrival in January after the sacking of Mike Phelan and has done more than most expected was possible, but ultimately he could not save them.
The real damage was done in the summer when the club followed promotion from the Championship by making a catastrophic mess of pre-season. They lost Steve Bruce and barely had enough players for a five-a-side team in August.
Silva (below) did not waste any time after this game in highlighting the chaos he found on his first day.
But that is not to say he is blameless. They have been brilliant in home games on his watch — 19 points from a possible 24 — but their record on the road since he took over has been abysmal, the worst in the league at two points from 27 after this defeat. That falls on him as much as the squad and the club’s bumbling ownership.
But he will surely re-emerge as a Premier League manager soon enough, while Hull return to the Championship after one season, which is music to the ears of Swansea City fans and those of Crystal Palace.
Afterwards, Silva, who is understood to be a target for Southampton should they look to replace Claude Puel, said: ‘Now is not the moment to talk about the future of the manager. It’s about the future of the club.
‘I will talk to the board and the chairman first, inside the walls of the club. It’s easy (to see) what the club needs to do differently.
‘Now we have to analyse it. I will give them my opinion about what they need to do differently.
‘We’ll see (if I will be manager next season). I have enjoyed these four months in the Premier League. That was one target I had in my career and we tried to do our best.
‘Now it’s time to be calm and see what is best. First for the future of the club and also for my career.’
Sam Allardyce, meanwhile, has enjoyed a degree of vindication at the end of a season that saw his bleakest moment.
There were times after his arrival in December that he looked to have lost his enthusiasm, the sparkle in his eyes greyed out by the debacle of his England exit.
But he has pulled it off, keeping Palace up and preserving his record of never having been relegated from the Premier League.
After Zaha had capitalised on Ranocchia’s early howler, Hull went 2-0 down after 34 minutes, undone again by a sleepy backline.
Jason Puncheon’s corner to the near post was well hit but Hull left Christian Benteke largely unattended to run across goal and head home his 15th goal of the season. A combination of injury and anger saw Silva substitute three of his defence before the 50th minute but it felt like changing sails on a yacht holed beneath the waterline.
Hull were 3-0 down on 85 minutes, courtesy of a Luka Milivojevic penalty, and it was 4-0 in stoppage time after a close-range finish by Patrick van Aanholt. A brutal ending for Hull. A burst of sunshine for Big Sam.