Michael Dawson, the Hull City captain, scored a goal that secured a 1-0 home win over Liverpool and had a significant impact on both ends of the English Premier League table on Tuesday.
This was Liverpool’s game in hand over Manchester United and their failure to win it leaves Brendan Rodgers’s team seven points adrift of the Old Trafford club with an inferior goal difference.
Both of them now have four games to play and Liverpool’s pursuit of a Champions League place looks to be over.
“Our fight is to perform better through to the end of the season,” Liverpool manager Brendan Rodgers told the BBC.
“It was always going to be difficult for us (to make the top four). The opportunity was tough this year in terms of where we were at as a team.”
Hull, meanwhile, have moved above Aston Villa near the foot of the table and are four points clear of the relegation zone.
With even a Europa Cup place far from certain, it will be scant consolation for Liverpool to know that few of their supporters were at the KC Stadium to witness the game which means their season is likely to end in disappointment.
Liverpool, frustrated on several occasions by 40-year-old goalkeeper Steve Harper, sold their allocation of 2506 tickets, but more than half of them boycotted the game as a protest against being charged STG50 ($A95).
Their absence, backed by both managers, represented the first significant step in a fans’ fightback against admission prices. It will not be the last.
It is a long time since Liverpool had such a paltry number of followers at an away game, but another familiar face was also missing.
Skipper Steven Gerrard, on the fringes of the action in the goalless draw at West Brom in their previous game, was replaced by Joe Allen and not even included among the substitutes.
The change initially did little to energise Liverpool in the wake of their lacklustre show against West Brom.
Hull’s breakthrough came after Paul McShane’s failure to control the ball inside the area reaped an unexpected benefit when it reached Ahmed Elmohamady, who had time and space to curl in a cross.
Liverpool left three Hull attackers offside as the ball went into the danger area, but allowed Dawson to power past them and head beyond Mignolet on 37 minutes.
