JUANDE Ramos' job hung by a thread last night after Tottenham's season lurched from bad to worse with yet another abject home defeat.
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Watch Premier League video highlights hereA superb free-kick after just eight minutes from Brazilian Geovanni did the damage to maintain Hull City'
s brilliant arrival in the top flight for the first time in their history.
Hull's wonderful start has now taken them to third place in the league table, but of more immediate relevance was Tottenham's third home league defeat of the season which left them stranded at the bottom of the Premier League with just two points and had the visiting Hull supporters revelling in their misery.
"You're getting sacked in the morning," they chanted, as Ramos stood in statuesque silence on the touchline on a day which had begun with reports linking Terry Venables with a return to Spurs. No confidence. No organisation. And precious little idea where the next league goal is coming from. It is difficult to see how the Tottenham crisis can be turned around without a change in the managerial team.
To add to the woes of Ramos, striker Roman Pavlyuchenko limped off in the first half. Life at White Hart Lane could hardly be more depressing.
Dirk Kuyt scored his first league goal since November to secure a dramatic 3-2 victory for Liverpool at Manchester City. The Netherlands striker rattled the ball home in stoppage time to stun the 10-man home side, who had raced into a two-goal lead in the first half through Stephen Ireland and Javier Garrido.
Fernando Torres pulled a goal back before City's Pablo Zabaleta was sent off. The momentum was then with Liverpool with Torres adding a second before Kuyt, who was guilty of a shocking earlier miss, had the final word.
City opened the scoring when Shaun Wright-Phillips cut the ball back from the byline only for it to get stuck under Robinho's feet. However, it eventually fell to Ireland and the midfielder rifled an unstoppable shot into the corner. City extended their lead in the 41st minute when Albert Riera fouled Wright-Phillips and Garrido curled in a left-footed free-kick past the despairing dive of Jose Reina.
After Torres scored from close range in the 56th minute, the game took a dramatic twist in the 68th when Zabaleta was sent off, and, five minutes later, Liverpool levelled through a Torres header. Kuyt then sealed the points in stoppage time.
Luiz Felipe Scolari may have an injury crisis on his hands but Chelsea's title challenge continues apace, with Aston Villa the latest to be swept aside at Stamford Bridge. First-half goals from Joe Cole and Nicolas Anelka kept Scolari's men at the top of the table.
England goalkeeper Robert Green's blunder helped Bolton on their way to a 3-1 win at high-flying West Ham which ended Gianfranco Zola's 100 per cent league record since succeeding Alan Curbishley at Upton Park.
The normally reliable Hammers No1 lost his grip in the wet conditions on the half-hour mark as he dropped the ball at the feet of Kevin Davies, who hooked it into an empty net.
Green then failed to push a low shot wide enough, with Gary Cahill bundling in from close range. The Hammers got a lifeline through Carlton Cole on the hour, but substitute Matt Taylor made sure of an away win with a 30-yard free-kick four minutes before the end of the match.
Portsmouth's little-and-large strike pairing of Jermain Defoe and Peter Crouch both scored as Harry Redknapp's side defied a physical test from Stoke City to win 2-1 at Fratton Park.
Pompey, in their seventh match in 22 days, went ahead through Crouch's spectacular 25th-minute overhead volley. Stoke scrambled an equaliser from former Hearts and Portsmouth striker Ricardo Fuller three minutes after the break but Defoe, who hit a post, restored his side's lead two minutes later.
The full article contains 675 words and appears in The Scotsman newspaper.
