Hull City's
return to the Premier League ended after a single season on Sunday, relegated
after a 4-0 loss at Crystal Palace. Hull
completes a trio of clubs from northeast England dropping into the second-tier
League Championship, with Sunderland and Middlesbrough having their relegation
confirmed in recent weeks.
The result
confirmed Palace's top-flight survival and ended any prospect of Swansea going
down.
Hull
couldn't recover from gifting Wilfried Zaha a third-minute goal. It was
followed by Christian Benteke's header, Luka Milivojevic's 85th-minute penalty
and Patrick van Aanholt's late strike.
Hull, who
will finish 18th, had begun the season with only 13 fit senior players, without
a permanent manager and amid widespread predictions of relegation. After winning
only three out of 20 league games since winning promotion, Mike Phelan was
fired in January. Marco Silva was hired to stop the rot but the task was beyond
the Portuguese coach.
Palace
counterpart Sam Allardyce maintained his remarkable record of never having been
relegated from the top-flight. The 62-year-old Allardyce earned promotion with
Bolton in 2001 and kept the northwest team up six times, and has since steered
Blackburn, West Ham and Palace to safety.
An 11th
place finish is still possible for a team he took over in 17th.
Allardyce
began the season as England manager and was fired over unguarded comments to
undercover investigative reporters after only one game in charge.
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