Player Ratings: Hull City 6-0 Bolton Wanderers

Any promise taken from Bolton Wanderers’ four points in two home games over Christmas was swiftly forgotten as they succumbed to a 6-0 hammering at the hands of Hull City on New Year’s Day.

I was tempted to say 6, 6, 6, 6 for the sake of irony, or appease Mr Anderson by going 10, 10, 10, 10, but Anderson can well and truly do one. Let’s get yesterday’s player ratings out of the way...

GK - Ben Alnwick: 5

It’s hard to be too harsh on the birthday boy, given he didn’t really stand a chance with any of the goals he conceded thanks to some truly dreadful defending in front of him. However, he did concede six. But, the final score would have been far more humiliating had it not been for a superb save amid a second half scramble in Bolton’s box and preventing Kamil Grosicki’s hat-trick.

RB - Jason Lowe: 3

I’ll pre-cursor this by saying it’s pretty clear to me that Lowe is not a right-back. So to then counter the opposition’s best player by again playing Lowe against him was a catastrophic, tactically inept decision by Phil Parkinson. Get Lowe back into midfield, and move on.

CB - David Wheater: 4

The run of fixtures appeared to catch up with Wheater, who looked way off the pace against a dangerous attack in Grosicki, Evandro, Jarrod Bowen and Chris Martin. A game to forget.

CB - Mark Beevers: 2

May also be a case of ‘one game too many’ over the festive period, but the centre-back apparently forgot how to defend in the second half at Hull, who found themselves free to score at will. We had Jack Hobbs on the bench yesterday, so I don’t really get why didn’t use him instead of one of Beevers or Wheater.

LB - Jonathan Grounds: 2

Grounds-hog Day. The left-back got ripped apart on numerous occasion by Bowen, including bizarrely getting beaten in the build-up to the opening goal when the attacker fell over, then somehow managed to skin him. Grounds clearly isn’t good enough. Please can we sign a left-back in January?

DM - Marc Wilson: 5

Got a lucky escape at half-time, when he was ‘injured’ and replaced by a supposedly more attacking threat. So he kind of escapes too much blame, but you do have to question why we’re playing him in midfield.

CM - Josh Vela: 4

I’ve been wanting Vela to get more of an opportunity, but this performance goes someway towards explaining why Parkinson has been reluctant to. His lack of creativity from midfield epitomises Bolton’s continued shortcomings.

CM - Gary O’Neil: 6

No offense intended towards O’Neil but when a 35-year-old is your best performing player, you know something’s going wrong. Created some decent opportunities, which his teammates were unable to convert.

‘RW’ - Clayton Donaldson: 1

The ‘striker’ has now gone 32 matches without scoring a goal, going back to last season with Sheffield United - yet he’s somehow started four consecutive games for us. He missed an absolute sitter with the score at 1-0, and made a pathetic effort at an overhead kick before Hull got the rout started. Surely it’s time to give Magennis, or anyone else, another chance ahead of him.

CF - Christian Doidge: 4

I feel sorry for Doidge because we just aren’t creating opportunities for him. He was denied by a superb Jack Butland save against Stoke City but didn’t get a kick at Hull, and not even a single touch in the opponents’ box, so it’s hard to pin too much blame on him.

LW - Sammy Ameobi: 3

I know he pops up with the occasional goal but he delivers so little quality on a regular basis. He rarely got involved against Hull, pulling one opportunity wide, was on the edges of the previous two games, and showed glimpses of what he can do at Brentford. Unfortunately, it’s all too often only glimpses.

Substitutes:

Erhun Oztumer (replaced Wilson 46): 3

No shortism intended, but he looks like a boy amongst men in The Championship. You wonder why we bothered to sign him when our style of play leaves him completely lost and incapable of running games.

Craig Noone (replaced Donaldson 65): 4

Came on. Contributed nothing. Hull scored three more goals.

Olkowski (replaced Ameobi 82): N/A

Came on at 5-0 down, which must have been a delight. Then Hull scored a sixth.