http://www.hulldailymail.co.uk/Hull...key-players/story-28015719-detail/story.html? HULL City have stalled contract talks with key players until there is more certainty over where the Tigers will be playing next season. Just two points split City from the automatic promotion places at the quarter mark of the season but uncertainty over where City will ply their trade next year is impacting on Bruce's long-term planning. First-team regulars such as Ahmed Elmohamady, Allan McGregor, Curtis Davies and Tom Huddlestone are all now in the final year of their deals at the KC but Bruce says contract talks may now be shelved until the New Year. But Bruce is conscious of not over-committing before he can be more confident of a genuine promotion opportunity. "My job is to balance the books," said Bruce, after City's latest set of accounts published at the weekend showed the club was relegated with £77.4m of debt. "I would love to tie them down for two or three years. It is a difficult situation so we have got to try and wait until we know where we are in the New Year."
I can't imagine there's going to be much more degree of certainty in the New Year. There would be the added complication of the transfer window.
They've lost the plot, as well as players and supporters. Bruce is now a lick-spittle, focussing more on appeasing the owners that he is on ensuring the integrity of his position.
Obviously it's complete nonsense, we'll be no more certain of promotion in the New Year, than we are now. I suspect that the owners are quite happy for a lot of players to drop of the wage bill at the end of the season, it makes the numbers look better ahead of a sale of the club and leaves the new owners free to sort their own personnel. Some won't sign now anyway, I think Huddlestone plans to leave and Davies probably wouldn't sign one even if it's offered, he might as well just way up his options at the end of the season.
To me, the really dangerous thing is that the players could well lose the will to win; if morale collapses - we're ****ed.
Would it really be wise to renew long unaffordable contracts at this time, perhaps it is more prudent to wait and see at this stage. We can always acquire other players if the present ones depart, this might even not be a bad thing.
Of those 4, I can't imagine many would be sad to see McGregor go, or Huddlestone no matter which division we are in. And whilst I can imagine most of us would want to keep Curtis and Elmo, they would be very much replaceable next season no matter what division we're in.
****ing crazy. Allowing valuable assets to continually run down into their final 12 months epitomises how poorly parts of the club are being managed at the moment. The obvious answer would have been to offer championship size contracts to the players, with a rise in wages, plus a bonus, if we were promoted to the PL. To not do anything and simply sit on your hands could send our club into freefall with the potential loss of multi millions in lost incoming transfer fees.
Davies £2.25m Elmo - £1.75m Huddlestone - £5m McGregor - £1.5m Meyler - £1.5m That's £12m in fees we're throwing away unless we cash in on a couple in January.
I'm not too bothered about these contracts. We're underachieving as it is. I want to see us start winning above anything else. Until that's the case, proven PL players won't want to stay here anyway, they'll go to another club where their talent isn't stifled.
I think three of those four will probably get themselves premier league wages regardless. McGregor will probably end up somewhere like the Sudanese fourth division.
The problem with offering championship wages with an increase for returning to the premier league is that the players are largely dependent on the manager for the increase. Maybe they would think they have a better chance of getting back in the premier league by not signing and seeing if premier league clubs are interested at the end of the season?
Our policy seems to be buy League 1/Championship players to get us promoted or at least stay in the Championship but I don't think that will get us promoted. The price of a club in the Championship is a fraction of a Premier League club. The Allams wont get anywhere near their debt paid off.
Possibly so, in fact highly probable. I suppose there's also always the scenario whereby the manager doesn't want to make an offer to players only to be turned down and for it to be made public. That wouldn't look good to any of our potential targets.
That could still apply to potential targets too. Although they wouldn't have the benefit of inside knowledge.
They can all sign a pre-contract deal in January if other clubs want them. Has to be foreign clubs though (not sure if Scotland is classed as 'foreign' in this instance)
