Hull City

In today's opening game of the 2009/10 Premier League season Chelsea's Didier Drogba's brace stole a well deserved point from Phil Brown's Hull City.

In the first early kick-off of the season, the Carlo Ancelotti's Blues came out with all guns blazing, with Drogba going close with a shot on goal from an Essien cross with in two minutes.

Chelsea piled on the pressure in the first 10 minutes but the Tigers held firm and then started to get into thte game more with some counter attacking football, with Dean Marney just heading over the Chelsea cross bar.

However, Chelsea did not sit back and pressed back pegging the Tigers in their own half before Stephen Hunt, who had fractured Petr Cech's skull whilst playing for Reading in 2005 season, scored from a shambolic piece of defending in the Chelsea penalty area.

This gave the Tigers a one-goal lead against the Premiership favourites, but it would not last for long. It was only nine minutes before referee Alan Wiley incorrectly penalised Seyi Olofinjana for a foul on John Mikel Obi four yards outside the Hull City penalty area.

With Frank Lampard and Drogba standing over the ball the Cote D'Ivoire international deftly floated the ball over the Hull City wall and past a disparing Boaz Myhill dive to level the tie at one a piece.

Hull City's Dean Marney was unfortunate to twist his knee in a robust challenge and was subbed by ex-England international and Hull native Nick Barmby on 43 minutes.

It would stay all square for the rest of the half with the Tigers hanging on to a very slender looking point.

Half Time score 1-1

Mikel replaced by Michael Ballack as the teams return for the second half.

In the second half the Blues yet again came out fired up but the stalwart Hull City defence were more than a match for the Blues. Ancelotti's team playing in his customary diamond formation seemed devoid of width and the Yorkshire team exploited this.

The Hull City midfield were channelling the powerful Chelsea team in to the middle of the field and nullifying almost every attack. The lone Hull City striker Caleb Folan chasing shadows trying to get a hold of the ball and hold it up for a Hull City counter when ever possible.

The Londoners came close on a few occasions but to no avail. On 66 minutes, Hull City's goal scorer Hunt, who had suffered from boos every time he was involved in the action, was replaced by Algerian international Kamel Ghilas. Chelsea also used their first substitution at this time, taking off Florent Malouda and bringing on the Portuguese International Deco.

Both subs invigorated their teams attacking options Ghilas was very lively and would come close on a couple of occasions, and Deco gave the Blues some much needed guile.

On 77 minutes, another substitution from both sides as Deiberson Geovanni is brought on for Hull City's Bernard Mendy and Salomon Kalou comes on to replace a lacklustre Nicolas Anelka.

The Tigers were penned in their own penalty area for long periods but yet again they managed to survive the Chelsea onslaught but with the fourth Official inexplicably revealed that six added minutes should be played.

The raising of the time board was greeted by load cheers from the Stamford Bridge faithful and a rueful smile from the Hull City manager.

Only two minutes later on 90+2 minutes Drogba received a wonderfully threaded pass from Deco in the left of the Hull City penalty area and with a speculative looping cross, found the back of the Hull City net.

Drogba was then booked for undue celebrating by the referee but it was all over as Chelsea then controlled possession.

Final Score 2-1

EPL Preview: Chelsea vs Hull City, Stamford Bridge, London, Saturday 15th August, 12:45BST.

Premier League survivers Hull City travel to Community Shield holders Chelsea for the opening game of the 2009/10 Barclays Premier League season.

In the same fixture last season the Tigers battled for a credible 0-0 draw that saw the Chelsea boss Phil Scolari receiving his marching orders from Roman "Oligarch'' Abramovich for his team's failings.

The Blues will be without the services of their new signing Yuri Zhirkov. The Russian signed from CSKA Moscow is unlikely to play due to a knee injury along with England's Joe Cole and Portugal's Paulo Ferreira who are both out with knee complaints.

The Tigers boss Phil Brown will have to blood some of his new signings due to the absence of Club Captain Ian Ashbee, current record signing Jimmy Bullard and Australian Richard Garcia who are all out with knee injuries.

Jozy Altidore will possibly be on the Tigers bench for Saturday's clash. After playing 30 minutes for the US National team in the high energy encoounter in Mexico's Azteca Stadium it thought that the young talent will have to wait till mid-week to make his full Premiership debut.

However, it suspected that Hull City's other new signings Stephen Hunt and Kamel Ghilas will start for the Tigers.

Carlo Ancelotti's Chelsea team will be favourites to win after their win against the current Premier League Champions Manchester United in the FA Community Shield at Wembly Stadium.

The Italian who managed to stave off the advances of Manchester City's Mark Hughes for the services of John Terry will be hoping to get the 2009/10 campaign off to a flying start with three points at the expense of the Tigers.

It’s here! The wait of more than two years . . err . . two months is over! On Saturday, we’ll play the first of the 38 important matches of this Premier League season. The first match of this Premier League season will be played at Stamford Bridge as we start the season with a midday kick-off.

Is Hull City a good opponent for a first match? I’d say so. Anyways, technically this is our second official match of the season. Our first opponent was the defending champions and we beat them fair and square. Hull City have made a couple of key signings in Jozy Altidore and Stephen Hunt.

Playing at Stamford Bridge, I guess Hull City would be happy with a draw. It’s public knowledge that we would play narrow 4-4-2 and I fear that Hull City might just be comfortable with that. When we play the teams from the bottom half of the bottom half, the best way to break them down is by stretching them and create spaces. Our narrow midfield would just be what the doctor ordered for Hull City.

They could be more than willing to pack their defence and midfield and defend deep and defend compact. I’d expect that we’ll see more of the ball but it could be rather frustrating if we don’t try to be innovative. How much we will use our full backs is a something I’d love to see.

In full flow, we might even see a 3-5-2 with the defensive midfielder dropping back.

There’s still some time to go to see who can play and who cannot. For now, it appears that Carlo has the whole squad minus Joe Cole to choose from. Talking about the squad, we seem to be very clear on what we want to do with the squad. The loaning of Di Santo, Sinclair and Mancienne seem to be very planned and calculated.

Di Santo’s is a half season loan, so he would be back on the New Year's Day of 2010 by which time the Africans will be packing their bags for the biggest football event (bigger than World Cup?) of their continent. Mancienne is on a season long loan and if Riccy wants to leave next summer, Mancienne can fit right back in.

We seem to be keen on using the youngsters but we don’t want to risk our chances by playing them. That’s why all these youngsters are being loaned out to teams where they have a better chance of getting more pitch time. Gael Kakuta is injured but he is certainly one for the future. There is also a strong expectation that the 20-year old Serbian midfielder Nemanja Matic would sign for Chelsea in the next few days. Plus, you have Sturridge who has come in and Kalou seems to be staying as well. And, you even have a young goalkeeper in Turnbull. Do you see that we are able to put together a very young but decent squad with good Premier League experience sometime next season?

Coming back to the playing eleven for Saturday, I’d go with the best playing eleven possible. I’d put Essien back in defensive midfield and get Ballack to start in the right midfield where Essien did not find his feet last weekend. I’ll have Malouda start on the left midfield and as always have Lampard as the attacking tip. Anelka did not impress me in the last match but I’d still start with him as he had the knack of scoring goals against teams like Hull City.

As far as the formation is concerned, there is no discussion. It is going to be narrow 4-4-2 diamond. Some people seem to be very uncomfortable with this formation primarily because this does not seem to play to our strengths. This formation seems to disregard the late season unbeaten run that was achieved in the last season. 4-3-3 was successful and we have the players to play and win in that formation. Anyway, the boss seems to be clear on what he wants. I’m fine as long as it works and wins. There was this opinion poll in the club website on which formation to use. Looks like we have started to embrace this un-Chelsea formation little earlier than expected.

I must admit that we are a bit lucky with our fixtures in first couple of months. Until the end of September, our list opponents reads as Hull City, Sunderland, Fulham, Burnley, Stoke City, Tottenham and Wigan. During the same period, Man Utd gets to play Arsenal, Man City and at White Hart Lane among other matches. So there’s a bright chance for Chelsea to lead the pack and pushing to become the winter champion.

If this Chelsea team leads the table by some margin by Christmas, they will be the champions. That’s when the "players are old" argument turns into "players are experienced" adulation. As you had seen in my IKTS, I predict this match to be a 2-0 win for Chelsea. I expect Malouda and Drogba to score.

I didn’t even talk about Arsenal and Liverpool there. You know how much I admire Arsenal. Let them rot in hell while they get relegated. On a realistic note, I do honestly believe that Man City would finish fourth and assign Arsenal to Europa League. And Liverpool are back with their ‘this would be our season’. Oh yes, this would be their season, to finish third. Jose Mourinho has made this term ‘zero tituli’ very famous in Italy. It was one of his typical snub to Ranieri to say that the Italian has won zero titles. After Inter won the league, Adidas even made and sold shirts that had the lines in Italian “Me – champion, you – zero titles”. It was a big hit there. That’s what to do for Liverpool too. They have won zero premier league titles. Yes, zero. We have won two. I don’t want to go back to pre-war periods and days of Elvis and Beatles to measure success. When we talk about Olympics, we don’t count the medals from the Greek civilisation, do we?

Ok, I’m itching to talk about this now. Few days back in the comments section, I saw that JoseHoliday was making a reference to the Himalayan sun bears and how manures in the new jersey look like them. I didn’t quite understand that then. But when I googled to see some images of sun bears, I couldn’t stop laughing. So here is my little photoshop work to substantiate JoseHoliday’s claim. It’s a pity that the sun bear does not have a sponsor, otherwise he would have matched Rio every inch. Credit to you JH, let sun bears be synonymous with Manchester Town

In the last blog, I had said that we should reach the 100 mark by this weekend in the BlueChampions fantasy league. I must say I underestimated you guys! We are 115 already! Keep it going! Surprisingly, I find so many non-Chelsea fans signing up in this mini-league. Very surprising and interesting. By Sunday, we will have the first rounds of fantasy league results and the IKTS scores. I’d say the IKTS is more challenging than the fantasy league. Why don’t you come up with our IKTS predictions. You know mine. Let’s see how we fare!

So we start another premier league season at BlueChampions. This is the fourth season start here at BlueChampions. Ironically, since this blog was started, we have not won the premier league. I want Chelsea to win the league. And I want all of us to celebrate that together, right here! Let’s have a great season guys! May this season be filled with peace, joy and trophies for Chelsea FC. I’ll leave you all with Michael Essien’s words:

We are the Champions at the end of the season; ENJOY THE SEASON BECAUSE WE WILL.

Sky Sports reports that Hull City are close to agreeing a deal for Celta Vigo’s 25-year-old striker Kamel Ghilas. During this transfer window Phil Brown has made a concerted effort to increase the potency of his attack as evidenced by the deal just completed to bring Jozy Altidore on a season’s loan.

At 18, Ghilas moved from Algeria to play for AS Cannes, then in the French third division. The young man settled in well in France making 18 appearances in his first season. In his three seasons at Les Dragons Rouges he netted 22 goals in 85 games.

His form caught the eye of the Portuguese Ligue 2 side Vitoria Guimaraes, whom he joined, and his spell in Portugal was a major success. In his first season he helped Vitoria gain promotion to the top flight. His second season was even better as he formed part of a team that finished third in the Superliga, earning the Minho side a UEFA Champions League spot.

This success was marred by a contractual dispute between Ghilas and the club. His two year contract had come to an end and he was expecting an offer which reflected his standing at the club. With the chairman refusing to meet his demands he left on a free transfer to Celta Vigo. During his spell in Portugal he scored 17 goals in 58 appearances. In his solitary season in Spain’s second division, he was Celta’s top striker netting 13 goals.

Ghilas is used as a deep lying striker who looks to exploit the space between defense and midfield. As his statistics show he is not a prolific striker, he looks to set up chances for others and contribute with a few goals of his own. He is predominantly right-footed and can play on either wing.

The Algerian almost signed for Blackburn Rovers for £1.7 million, however the move broke down in the 11th hour. Blackburn Rovers claimed he had failed the medical, whereas Celta Vigo claimed that Rovers had attempted to renegotiate the transfer fee and player’s wages at the last minute.

Phil Brown is taking a massive gamble purchasing Ghilas. Apart from his time at Vitoria he has never experienced top flight football, and even that was in one of Europe’s minor leagues. Questions exist over his speed and technical ability which would be exposed on a weekly basis in the Premier League. We warn the perma-tanned one to keep away.

Video evidence of Kamel Ghilas can be seen here.

Following a frustrating summer, with Fraizer Campbell, Marc Antoine Fortune, Bobby Zamora, and Habib Beye all rejecting moves to the Tigers, signings have progressed quite dramatically over the past week.

Firstly, we received news that we'd managed to hijack Seyi Olofinjana's £3m move from Stoke to Monaco, with the midfield player claiming that Hull's marina was just as nice as Monaco's, but the fish and chips were cheaper!

Then came news that we had finally secured the services of a striker, with Jozy Altidore joining us on a season long loan (with an option to buy), from Villarreal, a deal that was finalised yesterday, when his work permit was granted.

Following a week's trial, the club announced that it would be making a contract offer to Henri Camara, who obviously impressed Phil Brown in training, as he can't possibly have gauged his talents in 45-minutes we saw him play in a match. He's a free agent, having been released by Wigan, and with a wealth of experience, both internationally and in the Premier League, he should make a useful addition.

Yesterday, as news sites were reporting official confirmation of the Altidore switch, news also started to come though of an offer being accepted for Reading (and Ireland) left winger Stephen Hunt (above).

With Hungarian international Peter Halmosi having not lived up to expectations last season and Kevin Kilbane looking slower than a three-legged tortoise, it was a position that definitely needed to be strengthened. At a cost of £2.5m-3.5m (depending on which news site you believe), he looks good value, particularly as the release clause in his contract stands at £5.5m.

At the same time, news sites started to report that we've agreed terms for the permanent signing of Celta Vigo striker Kamel Ghilas, at just £1.5m, it looks great value for this Algerian international.

Obviously, there's work to be done before these last few deals go through and having been gazumped twice already this season, we know it's not a done deal, until those contracts are signed, but still, it's very encouraging.

Stephen Hunt has left the Irish training camp to come to Hull to finalise the deal and Ghilas is also expected to arrive shortly.

A week ago, the Hull City message boards were full of doom and gloom, obviously generated by the targets missed and the anticipated lack of activity, there's no such mood now.

We still desperately need a right back, as we currently have no right back at all (to anyone about to mention Bernard Mendy, don't, he's no more a Premier League right back than I am), most would suggest we need two, though this is perhaps a little optimistic. We need one signed before Saturday, or we'll be in trouble against Chelski.

In addition, we have still not yet used either of our two domestic loan spots, so there's still an option to bring in loan players. I think we'll look for a half-season loan on a central midfield player, possibly from one of the top four clubs, to use as cover until we hopefully see the injured Ian Ashbee and Jimmy Bullard return.

The mood has lifted, the squad is looking way better than last season and there's even a slim possibility that the bookies may improve our odds of survival. Again!

Well I'm back fresh from the Hull vs Aberdeen game and thought I'd write my thoughts out on what turned out to be a very mixed event.

Just because it was a testimonial to a true legend to both Hull and Aberdeen it was a very emotional day for fans from both teams. However, certain things happened that tainted the day for me and I suspect for quite a few fans as well.

Deano

Truly this day couldn't really be spoiled. Not when it was about a man who scored the goal that promoted our club into the Premier League, the player who put commitment into everything he did and the legend who's passion for the game shone through. D

eano, at times, got himself into a bit of bother, but that was more to do with his passion boiling over into an on pitch or even off pitch altercation.

With it being a testimonial game Deano was everywhere.

From his entrance to the game where all the players and officials lined up to welcome him on to the second half where he swapped teams and played for Aberdeen for a bit.

The final hurrah was the best moment where he came back on in the Tiger's kit and played the last 10 minutes of the game.

Every fan who went to the game turned up out of respect for Dean Windass. Even the 400 or so fans from Aberdeen who travelled at least 6 hours to be at the game.

It was a truly unique experience where fans from both teams sang together for one man.

The Game

Really having said all that about celebrating the career of Deano the result shouldn't really matter, but it did.

Now going down to a 1-0 defeat in a friendly doesn't seem like a big deal, but consider the fact we are playing Chelsea in less than a week. This match wasn't very promising.

Really Mr. Brown treated the game as a training match—substituting every single player over the course of the game to see who played well and who performed poorly.

Players that stood out for me personally were Olofinjana, who looked to have not lost any fitness, and inevitably Michael Turner who still is looking better and better.

However the rest of the Hull team seemed off their game which was kind of worrying.

Aberdeen fans for some reason had it in for Daniel Cousin (can't say I blame them)  and this seemed to drive a wedge between the two sets of fans but it was still an enjoyable enough atmosphere.

The Singers

This really put a downer on the start of the match to be honest. It seems management thought to give the occasion a special feeling they would get live singers in.

Well they needn't have bothered.

Fans didn't want unknown singers warbling at them and getting them to join in.They wanted to watch a game of football.

Instead we got an embarrassing unwelcome start to an otherwise great day. I don't know what other people thought, but to me it was just bad.

Overall

Overall I enjoyed it. I can say I was at Deano's last Hull game, even if he was on 20 minutes in total and 5 of them were in an Aberdeen shirt. It means a lot to a local lad to see another local lad play with pride for his club.

So many achievements, so many memories. Thanks a lot Deano.

Hull City look to have completed a surprise moves ahead of the new season with news emerging that United States and Villarreal forward Jozy Altidore will join the Premier League club on a season-long loan.

Altidore, writing on his Twitter page, did not explicitly state he was joining the Tigers, but left enough clues for fans to work it out.

“England here I come!” the 19-year-old wrote. “First match is against Chelsea (wink, wink) subject to a work permit.”

Hull travel to Stamford Bridge for the first match of the new season on Saturday 15th August.

Spanish side Villarreal paid €10 million for the American international at the beginning of last season. But the former New York Red Bulls player (he scored 15 goals in 37 games for the MLS club) struggled to adapt to La Liga, and only managed one goal in six appearances with El Submarino Amarillo.

He was subsequently loaned to second division Xerez for the second half of the season, where his campaign was ended by injury before he could play a game.

Nevertheless, Hull manager Phil Brown saw enough of Altidore’s talent at the Confederations Cup to convince him the youngster was worth signing to bolster his attacking options at the KC Stadium.

Altidore had a starring role in South Africa, where his power and presence caused opponents a real threat. The striker’s calm finish in the semi-final, coming somewhat ironically against Spain, also demonstrated his ability in front of goal.

Brown will be hoping Altidore is more suited to the Premier League than he was in La Liga, and will believe Altidore's size and power will enable him to be a success. At 6'1", the Haiti-born player certainly has physical presence but perhaps lacks some technical ability—something that was exposed by Spanish football.

If the example of other Americans who have plied their trade in England is anything to go by, then Altidore should hit the ground running. Past and present international teammates Brad Friedel, Brian McBride, and Clint Dempsey (to name just three) have all acquitted themselves well in England.

According to a source close to the deal, who spoke with ESPN, Altidore is excited about the prospect of playing in the Premier League, and also the opportunity to play regular first-team football ahead of next year’s World Cup—something that will also please Bob Bradley and fans of the US natioanl team.

Although Altidore will probably find himself on the bench initially, while Hull's backroom staff assess his fitness and give him time to adjust to their style of football, he will certainly hope to push the likes of Caleb Folan and Craig Fagan for a starting role in the near future.

Altidore stated on his Twitter that there will be a press conference tomorrow (August 6) at 2:30pm GMT formally announcing the move.

This time last year, Hull City was gearing up for its first season in the top flight. The Tigers' fans had waited over 100 years for this moment and it had finally arrived.

With a mixture of free agents and hungry young players keen to cut their teeth in the Premier League, manager Phil Brown managed to keep Hull up on the last day of the season, following Newcastle's failure to win at Aston Villa.

Brown was hailed a hero and the fans of the East Yorkshire club thought that the hard  part was done.

Wrong.

Survival is merely the start, the second season has seen a number of teams that came up, go down, just ask the fans of Reading. 

Twelve months on and the club's position hasn't really changed. Brown has the money to spend, but can't sign the players.

But what most fans of the club won't say is that it is arguably the most successful manager in the club's history's fault.

Brown is targeting all the wrong players, he is trying to compete for established Premier League players. They won't risk coming to a club that could be relegated come what May.

Owen, Zamora, Fortune, Campbell. All of them have no desire to be fighting for survival when they have offers from other more established clubs.

The best option open to Brown would be to sign the best players in the Championship, all would come at reasonable prices and all would have something to prove.

They don't have to benefit the club in the long term, just long enough for the Tigers to establish themselves as Premier League main-stayers, then the better players will be more likely to take an offer from Hull more seriously.

But It seems that Brown is becoming a desperate man, a man who is likely to become the first managerial casualty of the Premier League this season, because rather than looking at his options, he would rather argue the odds over the transfer windows.

Everyone knows that the transfer window system is a poor idea, which encourages panic buying and puts more money in agent’s pockets. But until that system is changed you just have to get on with it.

Well we are almost a month into the summer transfer window and the Tigers are still without a summer signing.

We have been in open negotiations with a few players, not least Fraizer Campbell of Manchester United (following a season long loan to Spurs), Marc Antoine Fortune of Nancy, France (following a five month loan spell with West Brom) and now Bobby Zamora of Fulham. All strikers that we so desperately need but with no success in making a signing.

Why is this? Some people would say it is because Phil Brown chastised his charges on the field at Eastlands. Some would have you think it is just Phil Brown and his antics in general.

Some would say it is Paul Duffen's inability to handle players agents. Others would suggest that we won't meet player wage demands.

Whilst some people would argue that players don't want to be in a relegation battle all season long.

I would argue that it is all of them and none of them at the same time.

Currently we have failed to sign three strikers. Michael Owen who signed for Manchester United from relegated Newcastle United. This one is a "no-brainer" as our American cousins would say. Who in their right minds would sign for Hull City if they had the choice of signing for Manchester United?

Secondly Fraizer Campbell. He had a instrumental part to play in propelling Hull City into the Premiership with some all important goals in our promotion-winning season and is highly regarded by the management and the fans of Hull City. However he chose to join Sunderland where he sees there being more potential for his future.

Marc Antoine Fortune had a very successful loan spell with the Baggies at the Hawthorns where he displayed a degree of talent that drew attention to him from other clubs, not least Celtic when his former WBA manager took the vacant managerial position. Tony Mowbray managed to lure Fortune to Celtic with the promise of European football.

Now, the three high profile players that we have failed to sign so publicly show one thing from the club and the management in general and that is intent. Okay, we didn't manage to sign any of them and the loss of Campbell probably hurt most of all after his spell with the club, but it shows that we are not intent on just making up the numbers in the Premiership.

The reason they didn't sign for the Tigers was probably because they saw their futures panning out better at other clubs rather than with Hull City in the short term.

Ah, you say but Phil Brown's antics caused them to not sign? That may be the case but when Phil Brown started getting more and more brazen in his comments that saw his stock tumble in the media the team's performances had already started to take a nose dive.

Brown's attempt to stop the rot at Eastlands was an attempt to nip the slump in the bud. That Boxing Day game was on the end of a series of games that had seen us only record one win in ten games and that was a lucky 2-1 victory against Middlesborough. We had picked up only six points from a possible 30.

It would have been interesting to see how the second half of the season would have panned out if in the following game of the season the Tigers had clung on for the draw they clearly deserved. Aston Villa, who had been scoring freely in the Premiership up to that point, were the Tigers' opponents at the KC and they left with a very lucky victory.

This was compounded by the defeat to Everton in the next game where the Tigers out-played the Toffees only to lose to a side that should have been down to ten men within 15 minutes. To add insult to injury for the Tigers, Felliani—who should have got his marching orders—scored a grossly offside goal to seal the three points.

Phil Brown's attempts to nip the slump in the bud were the reason for his change in style with the media. His shenanigans were in my opinion a well-crafted attempt to draw attention away from his ailing side. Luck and good fortune were in full measure for the Tigers last season but when the chips were down for the East Yorkshire club Phil Brown drew attention to himself to deflect it away from his players.

During the club's tumble down the division Paul Duffen, who had proudly proclaimed that we could be in Europe next season, saw just how tough the Premier League can be, as we slid slowly down the division to rest on the knife edge of the relegation zone.

The club as a whole has had some very bad times in its long history, most of it in the past 10 years. Locked out of its ground. Bankruptcy, almost relegated out of the Football League altogether.

One of the things that the club has learned is that just throwing money at a problem is no way to have long term stability. You only have to look at other clubs that have speculated to accumulate, such as Leeds United; or even Newcastle United last season.

Adam Pearson, our previous Chairman, knew this after his time with Leeds United and he has passed this onto Paul Duffen the current incumbent of the Hull City chairmanship. Under his stewardship the club has taken its first tentative steps into the unknown land of the Premier League.

Every fan, and I am sure every member of the club from top to bottom, would have taken 17th place in the Premiership last season if offered that at the start of the campaign.

However, we haven't broken the bank in doing so. Even signing the unlucky Jimmy Bullard for a record £5 million fee wasn't going to break the bank for the club and still kept his wages within the club's wage structure.

This transfer window has raised a whole new set of challenges for the club. With the ridiculous money coming into the Premiership from the takeover of Manchester City to the £80 million that Real Madrid spent on Cristiano Ronaldo, it has artificially raised the prices of the most ordinary of players.

You only have to look at the money Fulham are asking for striker Bobby Zamora, a player that only scored two goals for the London club last season. Is £5 million a lot for a player with his goalscoring abilities? Add to this the amount of money he willl expect in wages and it makes for a difficult situation for the chairman.

Does Duffen bite the bullet and pay the money asked for Zamora and then have to pay the high wages he expects and in the process rip up the club's wage structure? It's a tough nut to crack but does the club want to end up going down the route of Leeds United?

Ultimately, the club ended up in 17th place despite a fantastic start to last season. Does any player want to be involved in a relegation battle all season long? I would suspect the answer to that one is, no.

Any player signing for Hull City should be in no doubt that the up-coming season would be a tough season but so too would a season with Wolves, Birmingham, and Burnley who won promotion last season.

In the mix with the newly promoted team and Hull City should be added Bolton, Blackburn, Portsmouth, Stoke City, Sunderland, and Wigan. All of these clubs know that it isn't easy to sign players to struggle through a tough season but all players want to play at the highest possible level.

When the big clubs have divided up the players they want then the rest of us strugglers will get to feed on their scraps. Like dogs around a medieval knights' table.

Ultimately it's still too early to gauge the success of the summer transfer window as there are still six weeks left for clubs to make that all important "blow your socks off" signing.

If by Aug. 31st Hull City haven't signed any strikers then I will worry but until then I will worry about the loss of Sam Ricketts to Bolton and the attempts of Manchester City and Spurs to poach Michael Turner away from the KC Stadium.

Oh, and stop blaming everything on Phil Brown.

So, here we are again, ahead of another Premier League season and being written off as no hopers, despite being only two weeks into an eight week transfer window.

On the message boards across the UK, fans are predicting which clubs will be relegated and Hull City are on almost all of the lists, despite no one knowing who will be in Hull City's squad next season.

I like to pretend that I don't really care what other clubs fans think, but in reality, it irritates me a little.

I appreciate that we were shocking people in the second half of last season.

I appreciate we are once again relegation favorites, and I appreciate that some of the players we've been linked with are less than impressive.

Despite the issues we have, the fact remains that we are a Premier League football club, with great support, in a great city, with a lot going for us.

We know what we did wrong last season and the assumption is that we'll repeat that mistake.

I personally find that hard to understand.

We will sign around six players ahead of next season. Zamora and Murphy will not be our first choice strike force(though Zamora may well be one of our starting strikers) and until we know who will be in our squad, it's hard to judge anything.

We have learned much from our debut season.

We know that we have plenty of work to do, but Hull City AFC is a long way from a write off for next season.

Anyone who tells you otherwise, is probably an Arsenal fan.....................we still have Geovanni