Things We Think We Think #179

1. Looking for positives in defeat is a loser’s game, but there was no shame whatsoever in City’s 3-2 defeat to Chelsea. Ten minutes in there was the omnipresent worry that Chelsea were going to run up a cricket score after some very approximate defending, but a wondrous 72 seconds gave us a scarcely believed parity. That we were eventually edged out by the champions elect is of no surprise, and is of no cause for self flagellation, City made a decent fist of what was essentially a ‘free hit’.

2. That train of thought might be very different had other Premier League results not gone our way, but they did, every one of them. Sunderland, Villa, Burnley, Leicester and QPR all succumbed to losses, making our defeat immaterial. The teams below us now have one less game in which to make up the points they need to overtake us, so despite a loss, the weekend was a minor victory.

3. Diego Costa recently defended his ‘robust’ style of play, yet oddly took objection to Alex Bruce winning the ball and then kicking him up in the air. We bloody loved that. We bloody love Alex Bruce.

4. Dame N’Doye is really bloody good isn’t he? His work rate is brilliant, he defends from the front, gets into great positions and showed Saturday that he takes decent free kicks too. We’re going to miss Jelavić, and that places a lot of pressure on two forwards who are new to the English leagues, but some of the omens from Sunday were good

5. He and Andrew Robertson are the Premier League bargains of the season – and Robertson had a fine game on Sunday too. Unafraid to take Chelsea players on, the fearlessness of this youth was the catalyst for getting City back into the game. He’s had a few quiet patches this season, which is understandable given that this is his first in the Premier League, but there’s no doubting his ability and vast potential.

6. City have some time off for the international break, and while a loss is a loss, we enter that period in better heart than seemed possible after nine minutes of the Chelsea game. We’ll need to as well, because that run-in is daunting. Successive away games loom, as do visits from Champions League contenders. Five points and an avoidance of heavy defeats hurting our superior goal difference is likely to do it. It’d be great to pick the first of those up at Swansea.

7. The club said they’d present a business plan to the FA to show the proposed benefits of a name change, but didn’t. It’s reasonable to assume that there simply isn’t any business plan, because if there was, figures would not be plucked out of the air when a projected benefit pound amount is given. Previously Ehab Allam told Radio Humberside that Hull Tigers would make £1m a year just for being Hull Tigers, but at the weekend that figure was revised to £30m, and it has been several figures in between in the interim. Let’s call those figures what they really are: unfounded fantasy bullshit. The Allams have been described many times as ‘shrewd businessmen’, but do shrewd businessmen complain that they weren’t told that an application to a governing body has to be any good?

8. This was all discussed during Ehab Allam’s disastrous interviews with Radio Humberside over the weekend. First things first: well done to David Burns, who asked the hardest questions an Allam has faced thus far. And he wholly failed to answer any of them properly. Instead, he sounded smug, arrogant, ignorant and thoroughly out of touch. It’s been said before that Assem Allam handing control of City to his son may be a suitable way forward, replacing an intransigent and out of touch man with a more moderate one. Given that his contempt for the people of Hull apparently matches that of his father, we aren’t so sure.

9. And again, we return to the business implications of this. Ehab evidently fancies himself as a competent businessman – so how on earth does he consider it wise to serially aggravate his customers? Professional football may be a product with unusually high customer loyalty and substantial price inelasticity – but there are still limits. And if he and his father had the nerve to actually speak with supporters every once in a while, they’d learn that a lot of fans are much closer to their line in the sand than it may appear in from their ivory tower. Good businesses understand their customers and seek two-way dialogue with them. Our business openly dislikes its customers.

10. However, there’s little doubt that in terms of the name change, things remain solidly in the supporters’ favour. Assem Allam will have to break a promise in order to reapply, hardly an insurmountable obstacle for him, but one that will still play poorly. He seemingly intends to submit one identical to that just savaged by the FA’s Tribunal. Ehab continues to misguidedly thinks that the fans’ views are irrelevant, but even if their expensive lawyers persuade them that a successful application simply must feature success in a properly-run ballot, their recent petulance makes that impossible – because whatever they both think, the majority have always and will always oppose the name change. The name Hull City AFC looks a lot safer than their reign at the club.

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