Chelsea 0-0 Hull: Tigers maul title hopes

Published on Saturday 7 February 2009 18:57

CHELSEA'S fading title aspirations sustained another blow as they failed to overcome hard-working Hull and were booed off by their own fans.

Luiz Felipe Scolari's side have now dropped 16 points at home this season and after Aston Villa's win at Blackburn, they slipped to fourth in the Barclays Premier League.

Hull, without a win in nine league games, became the latest side to frustrate Chelsea on their home turf and with some more composed finishing in front of goal, may well have won.

Chelsea new boy Ricardo Quaresma, on loan from Inter Milan for the remainder of the season, showed some nice early touches and almost opened the scoring when Salomon Kalou's pass allowed him to try and curl the ball around keeper Matt Duke, but the winger's shot was tipped round the post.

On the half-hour mark, Michael Ballack was sent sprawling by Kamil Zayatte 20 yards from the Hull goal and the German's free-kick hit the side netting.

It was the spark for another sustained spell of Chelsea pressure, though the visitors almost stunned the home side in the 40th minute when Kilbane headed a cross from Samuel Ricketts just inches wide.

Scolari replaced the ineffective Mikel with Juliano Belletti in the 56th minute, but the initial change did nothing to spark Chelsea and so Scolari opted to replace Quaresma with Didier Drogba.

Hull wasted a gilt-edged chance when Geovanni carved open the Chelsea defence with a perfect through ball for Marney. The Hull player probably did not realise how much time he had as he screwed his shot just beyond the far post.

Referee Mason waved away penalty appeals from Chelsea when Andy Dawson appeared to handle the ball inside the penalty area.

In the 78th minute, Duke dived low to his left to keep out a shot from Kalou.