Let’s not forget we have signed Eric Lichaj. Who was born and raised in the same town as Randy “Macho Man” Savage and twisty comedian Emo Phillips. Rubbing shoulders with superstars.
Just signed for Watford. 2 million. I'm available if City are on the look for a Swedish league scout......
Hull City's big spending days are over as austerity bites hard at the KCOM Stadium Nigel Adkins admits "sustainability" is a must on the countdown to a new Championship season please log in to view this image The summer of 2014 seems an awfully long time ago. Not only did Hull City sign Harry Maguire and Andy Robertson, future stars of the World Cup and Champions League, twice they broke their club record signing to land Jake Livermore and then Abel Hernandez. Not much change was found from £40m in the transfer window that followed City’s run to the FA Cup final, but four years on it is a club living through its subsequent age of austerity. Money is too tight to mention at the KCOM Stadium ahead of this new Championship season. Or so it would seem. Although an undisclosed fee – believed to be in the region of £300,000 – was found to land Eric Lichaj from Nottingham Forest two weeks ago, City have so far lacked the spending power to strengthen Nigel Adkins’ squad. please log in to view this image Nigel Adkins during pre-season training There is cash waiting to be handed over, as the rejected bids for Cedric Kipre and Conor Townsend have underlined, but it is clearly in very short supply this summer. Twelve months after £16m was committed to sign Kevin Stewart, Nouha Dicko, Stephen Kingsley, Jon Toral, Jackson Irvine and Ondrej Mazuch, roughly a third of the record-breaking sales banked following relegation from the top-flight, Adkins finds himself shopping in a very different supermarket ahead of 2018-19. Rather than the Premier League and Championship, targets are being tracked in the SPL and League One. Low six-figure offers, not the seven-figure outlays of last summer, have become the recurring theme. Supporters have every right to be disappointed, especially after the exits of so many high-profile names, but none should be surprised. Adkins spoke about slashed budgets in the final weeks of last season, while in February vice chairman Ehab Allam could scarcely have been more clear about the board’s business model moving forward. “Spending more on players in the summer is only going to increase our level of investment and the asking price,” said Allam, whose family have been seeking new buyers since first placing the club up for sale in April 2014. “We don’t want to increase the asking price. We want to keep it sensible. Ideally we would like to recover what we put into the club, and we think that is possible.” Roughly translated: the well has run dry in the eighth year of the Allam family’s ownership. Plenty will point towards the parachute payments banked and due – roughly £41m last term and £34m this – but that income will not be spent on recruitment. City, again in the words of Ehab Allam, has to now be a “self-financing” club not reliant upon investment from its owners. The days of spending big will not return until a takeover does. “We’re going into the last year of the parachute payments so sustainability is a big thing the club is looking for,” said Adkins. “We’ve got to make sure there’s a wage structure in place that allows the club to do that. please log in to view this image Nouha Dicko in pre-season training “I know there’s six or seven clubs in the Championship who have broken Financial Fair Play and they’re going to find it very difficult to bring players in. You look at the plight of Aston Villa that’s being reported at this moment and there’ll be more who have tried to be successful but now they’re having to adjust finances accordingly. “We have to adhere to that at our football club. I want to be here for a long time and there’s got to be sustainability at the club.” That has already seen almost each and every one of City’s biggest earners depart but done little to loosen the purse strings. If the events of recent weeks are a guide, a transfer window that closes a month from today will not see the Tigers flexing financial muscles like they used to.
“I enjoyed my loan spell but I’ve been looking forward to it all summer, coming back in and getting started again, starting the hard work,” Wilson told liverpoolfc.com. “Last year I was desperate to make an impact in pre-season but I picked up a little injury and that stopped me doing so. “With the loan spell behind me, I’ve got a lot of confidence and belief that this season can be my season. “I went out and got the minutes I needed, scored a few goals and helped Hull climb the table a bit. I really enjoyed that. Now I’m focusing on doing well in pre-season and hopefully getting into this team.”
Porblem there Febbos is that he's about 1.9m more than we've got to spend....need bargain bucket scouting
The club has to be sustainable says Ehab, all very sensible, until you realise that in The Championship with the vast sums of Premier League TV money gone, you become more dependent upon gate revenue....oh wait......I've managed to screw that up, so we suffer a 'double whammy'!! Also doesn't he think that any prospective buyer/investor will not look at gate income and base his offer using that as part of the equation, what a numpty! Slowly but surely he's managed to p**s off what have always been his key stakeholders, the supporters; it wouldn't surprise me if we have less than 10k memberships next season, and whilst I would have expected to reduce following our fall from grace, to lose the best part of 12k supporters over 2 seasons is a reflection of management that under normal circumstances would see you highly criticised and rightly, and under pressure to retain his role where it not a privately owned enterprise. On top of that by replacing normal season ticket sales, he's also managed to devoid the club of important revenue at a time when transfer fees and salaries are high on the agenda as the squad is rebuilt during the key summer transfer window (in our instance yet again!!!). The guy has shot himself in the foot so many times, I'm surprised he's not walking around on crutches!!!
but he's not bothered after he gets his money back - he only spends the income - if the fans don't support the club then it gets what it deserves - nothing to do with him - the fans didn't support them so why should they support the fans - the only thing that is a mystery is why everyone lies back and lets them give it to them - apathy reigns and no-one gives a **** - cant wait for Ehab to leave the club in the state he found it - God knows how he's going to double the gate and get a rather decent team in place - so far it looks like we'll be in a financial mess, **** gates and a **** team - great legacy
“We have to adhere to that at our football club. I want to be here for a long time and there’s got to be sustainability at the club.” WTF?!?!
We know it's going to be a season of low crowds, we know it's going to be a struggling season, I just hope we manage to stay up they collect the sky payments and then because of the low income from gate money they decide to go. Just hope new owners who buy the club if it ever happens also have the money to invest because it will all need rebuilding again.
