The Manchester City debuts of Patrick Vieira and Adam Johnson were overshadowed by the return to the field of Wayne Bridge, which was, in turn, upstaged by a Hull City victory that lifted them out of the relegation zone as effectively as it shunted their monied visitors from the Champions League places.

Hull’s first win in 10 league matches came courtesy of goals in either half, from Jozy Altidore and George Boateng, as Phil Brown’s charges dominated the first hour and Manchester City, not for the first time this season and to the bemusement of Roberto Mancini, performed poorly away from Eastlands.

“The pitch is the same when we play at home or away and if we want to succeed we must win away and we must fight always,” said the Manchester City manager, who was unimpressed with the treatment doled out to Bridge on his first appearance since the 2-1 victory over Chelsea at the beginning of December.

While recuperating from a knee injury, the full-back has been thrust into a media storm not of his making and it was ­obvious that he would be targeted. “I think that sometimes the crowd do not have respect for people and this is not good. The people in the first half had no respect for him,” said Mancini.

For the first half-hour, Bridge cut a pretty lonely figure as Hull focused on the visitors’ right flank, with Stephen Hunt and, in particular, Altidore giving Pablo Zabaleta and Dedryck Boyata a torrid time. Mancini fielded arguably his strongest side, except for Boyata, who deputised for the injured Joleon Lescott in the centre of the defence, and his inexperience showed.

But the 20-year-old was not the only one to struggle to contain Altidore. Kolo Touré was booked in the fourth minute after obstructing the burly on-loan striker. ­Boyata followed him into the book when he dragged the inspired American back after being skinned again. Altidore worked well with Jan Vennegoor of ­Hesselink and the Dutchman volleyed wide from inside the area after 21 minutes and then three minutes later nodded the ball down for his compatriot Boateng, who shot just over from 20 yards.

On the half-hour, Altidore curled a right-foot shot around Shay Given and into his bottom left corner after ­Vennegoor of Hesselink tapped a Boateng pass back to the American on the edge of the area. It was only his second goal for the club he joined on loan from Villarreal during the summer and his first in the Premier League.

The following few minutes were tough on Bridge, who was subject to some chants from the emboldened home crowd, lost his boot and found himself marking Hull’s resident Tasmanian Dust Devil, Hunt, as the Ireland international switched wings.

On the day after his former girlfriend, Vanessa Perroncel, took a vow of Omerta, Bridge almost silenced the terrace wags with a goal in injury-time, but after playing a smart one-two with Stephen Ireland the full-back’s left-foot shot was well-saved by Boaz Myhill at his near post.

A second Hull goal was no surprise, but its sheer quality was jarring. Hunt’s corner was headed clear by Touré, only to be returned with extraordinary venom by Boateng. The ball swerved through a packed penalty area and past Given’s despairing dive. Cue the arrival of ­Manchester City. Emmanuel Adebayor and Carlos Tevez had half-chances before the Togo international bundled the ball home after a cleared corner from substitute Johnson was returned to the six-yard box by Gareth Barry.

Vieira was reintroduced to English football as his team-mates celebrated and the 33-year-old Frenchman was booked for a foul on Hull midfielder Tom Cairney, one of a few players to be praised by the Hull assistant manager, Brian Horton, who was sent to face the press after ­vanquishing his former employers.

“It’s always nice to play well against your old club,” Horton said. “I’m not bothered about whether they could have done more. We did what we had to do today.”

Bridge was replaced by Martin Petrov in the final five minutes to another chorus of taunts. At least he has returned to the reality of his day job – however unpleasant that may be when he plays away.

Premier LeagueHull CityManchester CityMikey Staffordguardian.co.uk

The man who serenaded the Hull City crowd with a Beach Boys song is now striking all the wrong notes

Swing east along the M62 towards Hull and, as signs for the Humber Bridge start appearing, a distinct sense of schadenfreude seeps into the autumn air. With vultures from the media and, rather more pertinently, accountancy worlds suddenly circling the KC Stadium, delight at the misfortunes being endured by Phil Brown and Hull City grows apace.

Both manager and board have, it seems, lost the plot. While Brown teeters on the brink of the sack, the erstwhile chairman Paul Duffen today resigned in the wake of Hull auditors Deloitte’s public raising of doubts about the club’s ability to continue as “a growing concern”. Duffen appears certain to be replaced by the former owner Adam Pearson.

A year ago, it was all so very different. Freshly promoted to the Premier League for the first time Hull appeared shiny and new and the extrovert Brown a breath of fresh air. When they briefly occupied a Champions League place Sam Allardyce’s former assistant found himself hyped as a future England coach while Duffen was hailed as a “model” chairman. Behind the scenes, though, things were unravelling. The night before Hull won at Newcastle last September there was a worrying incident which, with hindsight, should have served as a portent of reckless acts to come.

Shortly after his team checked into a Northumberland country hotel, the South Shields-born Brown was foolishly drawn into an argument with a Geordie wedding party about his long-standing love of Sunderland. Things turned nasty and, at around 10pm, Hull’s manager made the slightly bizarre decision to order his entire squad out of their rooms, transferring them to an alternative property an hour’s drive away on Newcastle quayside.

At the time it was shrugged off as merely part of the manager’s somewhat endearing eccentricity, but on Boxing Day, a switch again flipped inside Brown’s brain and, this time, it had more serious consequences. That infamous half-time freak-out on the Manchester City pitch – where his players were publicly berated at half-time during a 5-1 defeat – prompted a dismal run in which Hull won just one Premier League game until May. No matter, when the team narrowly avoided relegation after losing at home to Manchester United on last season’s final afternoon, Brown picked up a microphone and serenaded the KC Stadium with a rendition of a Beach Boys number.

It served to drain the final shred of credibility from a man whose ego has eclipsed a genuine coaching talent. Not for nothing was Brown credited with choreographing much of the success Bolton enjoyed under Allardyce and, initially, in East Yorkshire, his much admired, often match-winning, knack of tailoring varying systems and tactics to assorted opponents deservedly earned numerous plaudits. Intelligent players including Nick Barmby were impressed by his fusion of Allardyce-esque pragmatism with the attack-minded purist passing principles Bruce Rioch had instilled in Brown during his days as a Bolton full-back.

Unfortunately, though, as results deteriorated caution increasingly crept into those once vibrant game-plans and murmurs of discontent from the dressing room indicated that Hull’s players had begun to suspect that their manager’s suddenly gratingly brash and blingy facade concealed clay feet.

Falling-outs with Dean Windass and Geovanni hardly helped but neither did the career-threatening knee injury Jimmy Bullard suffered 37 minutes into his Hull debut last January. Apart from the fact that the team craved an incisive striker more than a dynamic midfielder, Bullard’s arrival for £5m and £50,000 weekly wages, despite a knee problem, emphasised Duffen’s growing loss of judgment. The chairman and manager were extremely close, too close perhaps, and Duffen’s high-risk gamble on Bullard seemed emblematic of his willingness to put Brown’s wishes ahead of the club’s future stability.

The club’s books were refusing to balance. Hull submitted their latest set of accounts five months late, immediately triggering alarm bells. And with good reason. Pearson’s imperative will be somehow to restructure the financing of a concern that Deloitte estimates needs to raise £23m to survive in the event of relegation and £16m should Premier League status be retained.

One of Pearson’s final acts during his first incarnation by the Humber – a tenure during which Hull moved out of dilapidated Boothferry Park and rose through the divisions, initially under Peter Taylor – was to appoint Brown. Now he must spend the weekend deliberating whether to make axing the manager his first move on Monday.

Hull CityPhil BrownPremier LeagueLouise Taylorguardian.co.uk