If we got relegated and Chester wanted to leave I think almost every club in the league outside of Chelsea and Man City would have a look at him to be honest. You look at the other contenders for the top 4 and they're all crying out for a centre half or at least cover there. Chester has proved over the last 18 months that he is easily Premier League quality, is quick, good in the air, very comfortable on the ball and has a bit of a goal threat as well. Him proving over the past few weeks that he's more than capable at right back and has played centre midfield in the past will help as well.
People didn't take me seriously when I said Chester was our best defender last season. He's got attributes that really hard to find. Speed and footballing ability.
He had a couple of injuries through the season last year didn't he? I think his hammy went a couple of times which prevented him from making the kind of impact that he could, and probably should have done. He's moved up another level this season though IMO, despite the teams terrible form.
The reason players don't sign for us is because other clubs offer them more money and or longer contracts. The players probably will not even know the owners names or where Hull is on the map. Most of these 'so and so interesting Hull City' stories are planted in the press by the agents or even the clubs who are trying to off load players. City are looking to strengthen due to the current injury crisis and anything else you hear is rubbish.
Chester has been our most consistent defender this season, despite his sending off in the 2nd game of the season. As some have already described him, he definitely is a Rolls Royce of a defender.
Meyho, read what I said in the context I said it. If we're down the finances take over. There's FFP and there's limits to how far the Allams can finance things even through loans. Don't be fooled by the reduction in debt reported in the last set of accounts, it was an artificial reduction caused by ignoring the worst month of the year for the club's finances. Everything we can to hold on to Robertson will extend as far as carrying him off the pitch, wrapping him in cotton wool, and holding him in place so he can't go getting pissed and injuring himself before he's sold.
Short-term confidence.for potential buyers who don't do due diligence, lenders etc. It'll still be shown in the next accounts (although August of that year will be pushed into the following year)..
Increased profit/reduced losses, and better liquidity (ie Hardly any money comes in during that month, but loads goes out or is committed to going out so either your bank balance goes down or your debts increase). Rough figures, by leaving out July we looked like we made £11M more profit than we would have if we'd done a full 12 month set like in previous years (I think we reported a £3M profit so really we lost £8M if we want to compare it with previous years). We also had a debt figure that was £25M lower than it would have been if we'd gone to the end of July again. (both figures based on about £6M/month wages and about £19M spent on transfers up to the end of July for players signing 3 season contracts, the differences don't seem to match up because of how transfer fees are recorded in accounts) To be fair, making the change makes sense so I'm not saying they've done it to try and trick anybody, the result is just misleading if you don't realise what's happened. The transfer window opens on 1st July, and your activity in it is entirely dependent on what division you're going to be in the following season. It's daft therefore to have the first half of the transfer window in the accounts for the previous season, so switching from ending the accounts at the end of July to ending them at the end of June is sensible and I'm surprised more clubs haven't done it since transfer windows were introduced given you're meant to produce accounts that are comparable from one year to the next. If you look at when we got promoted, the accounts ran 1st August 2012 to 31st July 2013. We had a Championship income for the year because the PL money started coming in during August 2013 when we started playing games. But obviously in July 2013 we were signing players to be in the PL, and were committing spending to that level. You see most teams promoted from the Championship report huge losses for that reason. It makes sense to try and get that spending accounted for purely in the accounts that relate to the PL years. Similarly, when you get relegated and you're inevitably going to make losses in the first season down, it would be very nice if you could have your summer fire sale in July count towards the Championship season and give you a chance of minimising losses in that period.
