Interesting but as you say means nothing this season. We don't play with fear. More careful maybe but hardly fear football. Let the rest fearus now AND THEY DO.!!!!!
The reason I dug it up was to show how last season was close at this stage too! Unfortunately the drama queens have seen it as another axe to grind about how the top 2 didn't go up & the next 3 did!
If I was Gary Numan that would be ****ing mint. What's wrong with wanting a more attacking approach to games? I don't accept that whatever Bruce does, no matter what, is the best possible way. Football doesn't work like that, life doesn't work like that. Setting up to get a clean sheet with this quality of squad is daft. A clean sheet should be a bonus, not an objective.
Nowt wrong with wanting an attacking approach to games, as long as it's not at the expense of the result. This may sound kinda crazy, but I believe Steve Bruce knows the strengths and weaknesses of his squad better than casual observers. I think he believes our attack to be the weakest part of the team but he would never admit it in public for very good reasons. For that reason he may have come to the conclusion that our attack is relatively weak compared to our competitors, some of whom have far more assets. Should we play more like Fulham?
Our last ten includes only 4 at home and 6 away, Burnley's last 10 games include MK Dons, Bolton and Rotherham and they had 5 home games. They couldn't beat Ipswich or Reading and like us, drew with Sheff Wed. All hail Sean Douche and his run all day team.
When you have attacking players that cost a combined total of £22 million quid, our attack shouldn't be the weakest part of our team at all.
Aluko has no future at City, he's underachieved for last couple of years now . Akpom is a teenager on loan. We ain't got many goalscorers in the building.
Better strikers are needed in the top tier, but getting them isn't so easy. Our tactical nouse up front has been a problem in the past too though, which is not purely on the players.
Snodgrass, Clucas, Elmo, Diomande.... Not all strikers, but all attacking players. EDIT: I forgot Diame, so even more then. In a lifetime where I've seen a hull city squad worth less than 500k (maybe less in the early 90s), it's hard to believe one portion of our squad costs so much.
It depends on the player, Ighalo wasn't up to much in the Championship, now he's one of the Premier Leagues leading scorers. We've seen Abel in the top flight, but not in a team with confidence. I think if we bounce back, he will be much better for this season.
I think most of this is probably right, bit Bruce signed every player in this squad and spent a lot of money doing it. We shouldn't be so weak up front. We shouldn't be having to play Diame there to plug a hole and we shouldn't have to persist with Hernandez when he's not bothering, but Bruce's other forwards have been so poor that he has to stick with those two lazy bastards even if they play like they have the last two games. This. It's not just goalscorers. The whole team would score more goals if someone up front was making runs into the channels and holding it up. As it is every forward ball comes straight back so all we can do is try to play tippy tappy which we're really not very good at. Ighalo was excellent in the Championship.
His goal scoring record is exactly the same in both leagues, 20 in 35 in the Championship and 14 in 26 in the Premier League so far this season.
A few of those drama queens were @ the game last night. They compared our performance to the one @ Preston. Other than the scoreline / result the games were worlds apart.
Whilst Hull City are now focussing on the FAC for the next few days or so....... W/E 5-6th march Middlesboro v Wolverhampton Burnley v Blackburn Rovers Preston v Brighton Tuesday 12th march Brighton v Sheffield Wednesday Fulham v Burnley Rotherham v Middlesboro IMO, a few shocks to come in these.
I'm sure you're clued up enough to know that the slow sale of N'doye and Jelavic before we could any new attackers in left SB with poor options. That's we ended up Neil Diamande from Norway, a crock unproven in England, Sone Aluko and Chubley Akpom the on loan teenager, It's not all Bruce's fault- blame the men who authorise the sales/ buys. They are the ones who limit his options. Even Steve Walsh signed some dross for us. If only some of the other midfielders could chip in with the goals that Clucas has......or some of free kicks went in...or some of our corners/ set pieces.
