Back to the football

I am late in focusing on tomorrow's match on Hull City, in part because of the muted festive celebrations, in part because I thought it was possible that the match might be called off.

Hull have been without a game for two weeks because of an outbreak of Covid-19 in their squad and may miss two key players tomorrow: https://www.hulldailymail.co.uk/sport/football/football-news/coronavirus-set-play-havoc-hull-4845689

Sam Allardyce's call for a circuit breaker was self-serving, but concerns about the virulence of new variant Covid-19 do appear to be well founded.  Quite what should be done about it, in particular in relation to football, is a decision I am glad I do not have to take.   

Fortunately, the paper on modelling diseases I published in Transactions of the Royal Society some years ago has sunk without trace.   I had enough problems over the festive period with media wanting to talk about Brexit, a call at 5.30 am on Christmas Day being the last straw.

So it's good to try and think about football.  Hull City have fallen below Charlton in the form table, even though they are above them in the real table: https://www.castrust.org/2021/01/two-teams-searching-for-form/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=two-teams-searching-for-form

Hull's record at home is a bit mixed having won five and lost three with no draws.  My impression from The Football League Show is that they have defensive weaknesses.   That poses two questions: can we exploit them and can we cover up our own defensive shortcomings?   It may well be that Hull will experience the first home draw of the season and it could well be a score draw.

One of my oddest experiences in Hull was some years ago when we visited a friend of my late wife's on the way to a Charlton game at Boro.   We knew that she had been through an acrimonious divorce, what we didn't know was that it involved one of the few Charlton fans in Hull (he actually came from SE7).

Christmas quiz

This was probably too difficult and too historical for most Addicks, but congratulations to the winner Mr G. Speller of Marden in Kent who will be receiving a copy of Political Football later in the year.