Some sagely snippets from Sky Transfer Guide, June 2013 "Hull City may look to invest in their playing squad, but it will take an awful lot to persuade onlookers that they have a decent chance of Premier League survival. Almost every area of the side needs improvement if fans are not to endure a season of rather torrid disappointment." "What's needed: A whole new XI? Looking at the Hull squad, it's difficult to pick out even one player who is good enough to play in the Premier League." "It all adds up to a long old season and not a whole lot of fun for Hull fans."
I do remember those comments, and I knew we'd prove them wrong. "it's difficult to pick out even one player who is good enough to play in the Premier League." - I think this is the funniest comment, given how well Rosenior, Chester, Brady, Elmohamady, Meyler, Boyd, Quinn etc have stepped up.
Its easy to be right in hindsight, everyone you've listed there had either failed in the PL or never played there, all of them had question marks about them. Thankfully they performed and we had a great season. I can completely understand an outsider doubting them at the start of the season though.
I remember this! Was up in the local. Never seen such rubbish. Especially when we went up with a terrible palace team and an average cardiff side
The funny thing is, from memory the way we lined up against Cardiff at home was very similar to the final game of the 12/13 season. I think the only changes were Hudd, Livermore, Davies and McGregor from the players we had available for the final day, which just went to show that regeneration is important, but gradual regeneration is better than overhauling the side like Palace did.
Thing is though, they didn't overhaul their side as such, they just bought a **** load of players. The mainstay players of their side, such as Speroni, Ward, Delaney, Gabbidon, Jedinak, Bolasie and Moxey, were all there in the Championship. Ian Holloway's ineptitude in the transfer market meant that they had to loan out players like Dobbie and Kebe before they really got a chance to play. In fact, they signed one player (Florian Marange) in August and by October had cancelled his contract because Ollie thought "he's to slow". And there was obviously nothing wrong with their team as they finished ahead of us. If Cardiff didn't have so much off the pitch crap going on, they'd probably have run us pretty close too.
They brought in some pretty handy players in January and offloaded some dead wood so I would say there was a bit wrong with their squad.
That's an urban myth - Merson wasn't that unkind to us last season! His predicted scores would have given us more points that Lawro's.
Pundits write the same **** year in year out, this next season they'll be writing off Leicester and Burnley without question, but backing bent Harry to the ****ing hilt
To be fair, you are right in that I did hear him come out with a few good things once we got a fair while into the season. I just wanted to jump on the band wagon and abuse the fat slaaaag! As others have suggested, it is just a promoted 3 that get written off, that will not change. Its odd, because usually at least one (and some do it with ease), if not generally 2 survive the drop.
No we didn't, not in Summer. *sigh* Rosenior, Elmohammady, Chester, McShane, Bruce, Meyler, Quinn, Boyd, Gedo, Aluko, Jakupovic, Koren, Fryatt and of course, Dougie Wilson, were all playing for us in the Championship. We signed six players in the Summer, two of which were goalkeepers (we only had one at the time) and another already played for the club on loan (Boyd). We then signed two loan players, Graham (who was sent back in January anyway) and Livermore. So it was hardly a complete overhall, we just plugged the gaps that needed filling.
No we didn't. Oh, our promotion team was pretty much the one that romped to the FA Cup Final 2014 too.
