ONCE the champagne ran dry and the hangovers subsided, there was a problem that Steve Bruce could not ignore ahead of Hull City's Premier League return in August.
Nine different goalkeepers had been used during three years in the Championship and not one had been able to propose a long-term solution.
David Stockdale, the dependable figure who had helped win promotion last term, found himself priced out of a permanent move by parent club Fulham, while a pursuit of Leicester's Kasper Schmeichel never got through the front doors of the King Power Stadium.
That left Bruce with his gaze drawn to Istanbul, Besiktas and Allan McGregor.
Convincing the Scotland international to leave Turkey just 12 months after his arrival from Glasgow Rangers, Bruce was finally able to end his arduous search for a new number one for the princely sum of £1.5m.
If there was ever any doubt over a 31-year-old new to English football, McGregor has quietly and quickly proved himself worthy of the Premier League stage. In 13 starts for the Tigers he has conceded just 14 goals and made mistakes that would struggle to fill a hand.
A fourth clean-sheet of the season (understudy Steve Harper secured City's other) was his best yet.
In a drab contest that the Tigers had edged for an hour without taking their chances, McGregor was eventually the difference between his side escaping with a point and nothing at all. Just as City had rued the heroics of Asmir Begovic, Stoke cursed those of McGregor.
Two exceptional saves inside the final 20 minutes spared the Tigers from a deflating defeat.
First McGregor got down low to deny Peter Crouch's point-blank header, rendering Stephen Ireland offside despite converting the rebound, and then he found the agility to turn Crouch's low drive around the post. Ryan Shawcross headed against the bar from the resulting corner, but McGregor had earned his fortune.
Although a goalkeeper is never far from a crisis on the tightrope they walk each week, McGregor is earning his corn as City's number one. Curtis Davies and Tom Huddlestone have earned most plaudits of the summer arrivals, but McGregor has so far offered the greatest value for money. The fact Bruce and supporters no longer fret about the number one shirt says all you need to know.
Relegation anxieties, too, are being kept from the door. A 19th point of the campaign was as ugly as the weather that swirled around the KC Stadium on Saturday evening, but represented another step along the road to safety.
For City, the gap above the bottom three is stretched to six points. With just this weekend's trip to West Brom, a club without a manager following Steve Clarke's weekend sacking, to come before Christmas, there is every cause to enjoy the festivities that lie in wait.
The Tigers are hardly galloping towards safety and never will so long as goals remain so hard to find, but this survival campaign is proving to be a triumph for defensive strength. Just three goals have been leaked in eight games at the KC Stadium now. Even the invincibles of Manchester City have shipped five on home soil.
The Premier League's best two defences overall, Everton and Southampton, have conceded 15 as opposed to City's 19. In 16 games, only the Saints have found a way to score more than two past Bruce's men. So long as that continues, the Tigers will not have a relegation worry in the world.
City are a predictable yet effective group and a stalemate with Stoke underlined as much. There were chances to win it and opportunities to lose, but having lost to Crystal Palace three weeks earlier, lessons had been learned. Make sure something comes from these games, anything.
The opening hour suggested one winner of a fixture that Sky had inexplicably chosen to beam around the nation. It cannot have taken long for the broadcasters to regret their decision, just hours after rivals BT Sport had screened a nine-goal attacking feast between Manchester City and Arsenal.
Here it was scraps, but all were falling off the table into the home side's lap early on. Ahmed Elmohamady, much improved since his switch to right wing-back, brought a fingertip save out of Begovic with a volley bound for the top corner, before teeing up Yannick Sagbo to be denied by the keeper low at the near post. Davies, rising above all around him, should have done better when heading Tom Huddlestone's free-kick wide.
Begovic again denied Elmohamady after the break with a scrambling save to keep out the Egyptian's back-post header, a move that proved to be City's last attacking hurrah. And that was with half an hour remaining.
It was then that Stoke, to their credit, found an urgency and drive that had been absent from their approach. A spurned counter-attack set up by a misunderstanding between Jake Livermore and Maynor Figueroa provided the impetus and the Potters grew.
Shawcross missed a golden chance when failing to connect inside the six-yard box, while McGregor stood up to be counted after an hour that had barely seen him make a contribution of note. The offside flag correctly denied Ireland from close range once McGregor had saved brilliantly from Crouch.
Fifteen minutes from time, Shawcross struck the crossbar with a looping header but to see either side emerge with three points would have been an injustice. A point was all either side warranted from a game that struggled to leave an imprint on the imagination.
The greater spectacle came from campaigners against the proposed name change to Hull Tigers. After close to 500 supporters attended a public meeting at Tigers Lair ahead of kick-off, the peaceful protests continued with a volume that increases by the week.
That momentum behind the City Till We Die group is building and so too is City's points tally. Owner Assem Allam and his vocal opposition can at least agree to raise a festive glass to the latter.
