Things We Think We Think #177

1. Sunderland was two points dropped as much as one gained when one takes an emotive look at events on Tuesday night, but at least we didn’t lose to a rival in the bottom section of the Premier League table. A third straight Premier League win at home – which we’ve never done – would have been handy as well as historic but we’re still in a good position, and results the following evening very much went our way.

2. Steve Bruce could ‘have’ Gus Poyet for breakfast, we reckon. But what a weird spat that was, coming from a situation where neither manager could possibly have known for certain whether Jack Rodwell had dived or not. It didn’t look very savoury for two men of an age where they should absolutely have known better to be trying to handbag one another in the technical area.

3. Leicester away is pivotal, isn’t it? We could put away one of our relegation rivals probably for the rest of the season, bloody the nose of their beleaguered manager a little more and give some of the less forgiving elements of the City support even more reason to crow at Nigel Pearson, even though he left the club because he couldn’t work with the Allams (hardly a view to be unsympathetic towards) and pretty much saved us from going out of business by doing necessarily drastic things with the first team squad. But we can put our own feelings towards our ex-gaffer to one side; this weekend’s game is very much about beating his team, not getting one over on him.

4. Pearson is correct to say that this is a must-win game for his side. Fail to do so, and you’d have to conclude they’re gone. That’d leave only two places to avoid, places that QPR and Burnley look eminently capable of filling. However, it’d still be nice if City could stride clear of danger rather than relying on the inadequacy of others.

5. Those banners featuring quotations from City terrace songs do not include any that feature the word ‘City’. If you take pettiness, add a dollop of insincerity, chuck in a smidgeon of myopia and a huge portion of cowardice, then forget to include any sense of shame, you have the Hull City marketing department.

5. The grim saga of the name change grinds remorselessly on. As has been extensively noted, Assem Allam’s wish to prolong the whole sorry situation demonstrates that his wish to spite the fans and Hull City Council outweighs any concerns he claims to have about not providing distractions to Steve Bruce and the team – them being thankfully proving themselves to be above his tawdry machinations. Yet, an interesting observation was made by the Supporters’ Trust in the week – the FA has already specifically promised that “once a decision has been reached it will be published“.

6. That leads us to two possibilities: that the FA have not decided, and are late in doing so; or that they have decided to break with their previous undertaking for the benefit of the man who hysterically accused them of “prejudice” for daring to ask Hull City fans about Hull City’s name. Either way, Mr Allam continues to cause disruption and ill-feeling and worry continue to stalk the terraces. Someone, please, have the nerve and decency to put this issue out of our misery. Given that Assem Allam famously holds City fans in complete contempt, that’ll probably have to be the FA.

7. Meanwhile, it makes obviously poor business sense, as it always has. Hamstrung by uncertainty, the club cannot plausibly begin to sell season tickets yet, knowing that plenty will not countenance buying them in the advent of the FA inflicting disaster upon us. Even a promise that refunds would be provided w0n’t wash, Mr Allam not having an entirely unblemished record of sticking to his word.

8. Starved of information, some City fans direct their ire towards the local media. That’s understandable up to a point, as neither major media outlet in Hull has covered themselves in glory (though the Hull Daily Mail at least apologised for not knowing the name of the club it’s covered for 110 years on Saturday). But don’t shoot the messengers. The enemy is not local journalists a bit afraid money and power, it’s Hull Tigers.

9. Each top flight club is given £200,000 from the Premier League to put towards subsidising the cost of away games. City spent some of this money on coach travel to Arsenal last autumn, presumably leaving plenty over. The Fans’ Working Group, at its first meeting in July, advised City to spend it on discounted tickets (the club themselves concurring at the time that travel-only was “not entirely successful” the previous season). That group expressed surprise in October upon learning that Arsenal had already been subsidised by coach travel only and not tickets, and appeared to have a firm agreement in December that it’d be done by tickets-only in the future. This is a club is notoriously awful at listening to supporters and doing what it says it will, so we shan’t hold our breath – but who knows, perhaps there’ll be announcement soon that’ll pleasantly surprise us.

9a. We’ve been told to expect another meeting of the Working Group for some weeks now. Nothing yet, but we’ll be soliciting queries and comments the moment one is arranged.

10. Undeniably good news that City’s request for a re-audit of their youth set-up has been granted by the FA. When City very narrowly missed out on Category 2 status in October we thought it unfair that a reassessment couldn’t take place until perhaps 2016. The FA say that youth investment is important, and their decision to fast-track our application is consistent with this. We’ve also said before that the Allam family don’t get the credit they deserve for their attention to Hull City AFC’s youth set-up (though that’s their own fault for overshadowing it with other things), however it’s good to see that things may progress more quickly than first hope.

http://www.ambernectar.org/blog/2015/03/things-we-think-we-think-177/

 

Nigel Pearson total spend £3.3m.

Steve Bruce total spend £9m + £22m + £21m = £52m.

Might have a bearing.

 

Last season we only bought McGregor(£1.8m), Sagbo(£1.6m) and Huddlestone(£5m), in the summer and we sold Hobbs, Evans and Cairney, so our total spend was well under £8m.

This season we spent £42m(I forgot a couple), but took in £15m for Long and Boyd, so it was about £27m.

 

Yes, I also think that Bruce being given three times what Nigel was in his first season, played a large part in getting us to that league.