Dan: Hull — Fixture Congestion, Injuries, Suspensions, But Apart From That…

Hi there!

Welcome back to East Yorkshire where Hull City look to continue their early season assault on the top of the table. Last time I left you we went unbeaten in August and only conceded 1 goal in the process, followed up by a very strong September until we faced Derby County and Sheffield United who both, in turn, inflicted our first 2 defeats of the season. Well we’ve moved on now and entered the early Winter months, so let’s see how Hull faired in October…

October Results

October Scorers

Not really the response that I wanted from our 2 defeats. Firstly we came up against Doncaster who were flying high and I found out why, their possession football pulled us apart for large areas of the match until a Atila Turan header snatched us a victory. Next up came Portsmouth who were really struggling, an easy win? No chance and it took a last minute Fagan goal to give us an undeserved point. After that home match we travelled to Scunthorpe, who despite being better positioned than Portsmouth, put up significantly less fight and were beaten pretty much by Tomas Horava on his own. That promising result was followed up by a bore draw with play-off hopefuls Nottingham Forest before we were crushed mercilessly by Manchester City. Next up saw Crystal Palace venture to The Circle where we this time threw away the match in the final minutes after a Solana penalty.

I didn’t bother with a screenshot for this month since it wasn’t that interesting but it did cause us to lose top spot to what seems to be an invincible Burnley side. Onto November…

November Results

November Scorers

This is more like it! After October I began to wonder if teams had sussed us out so I slightly changed my tactics, the formation remained the same but we now play faster football and more narrow than we did before. This change seemed to work when we dispatched Norwich with ease, all 3 strikers scoring. I then had my doubts against Coventry when we threw away a 2-0 lead in the final 20 minutes of the game and we almost did the same against Watford had it not been for a late, late Folan goal. After that though we breezed past Reading, Fagan scoring again and Horava grabbing his second of the month from midfield. But the final match of the month was special…

We beat Cardiff 3-0, you might be thinking ‘well what’s so special about that?’, and I shall tell you. As I went to pick my team I realised something, I have 6 strikers, Simpson and Fryatt are laid up with lengthy injuries, and Cullen is out on loan. That leaves me with Fagan, McLean, and Folan, not disasterous. That is until you find out that McLean is suspended for picking up his 5th yellow card against Reading, and Fagan is on international duty with Jamaica (whom he scored his first goal for). That left me with my 1 goal hitman Folan and a big decision, do I play a formation my team has never played before with 1 up front? Or do I go for it in typical Dan style and play Horava and Stewart up front? Guess which I picked!

Horava was amazing, scoring a goal when playing completely out of position (he can’t play up front at all) and winning the penalty for Cairney to score. Stewart’s direct running and pace meant Cardiff couldn’t ever venture forward and Folan, strangely enough, was my worst player up front!

Transfer News

That’s right, it’s November and I have transfer news for you! Due to my teams defensive frailties over the past 2 months I decided to bring in another player at the back on a free…

Calum Davenport should sure up the defence as a rotation player but I had to pay much more wages than I wanted in order to get him. Even if he doesn’t sure up the defence then he should at least provide competition for places and make my other defenders perform better. At the moment he’s a bench player due to just recovering from an injury (which I’m sure we all remember) so hopefully his match fitness will increase quickly as he plays for the reserves each week.

And here’s my team as a whole. It’s plain for everyone to see that me team performs much better going forward that it does at the back. Most attacking players have 7+ while my defensive players seem to linger around the 6.8 mark, it’s not a massive gap but it’s noticeable. Simpson still leads the way in ratings despite being injured for 2 months now. Stewart has performed well in both games he’s played this season (1 being against Manchester City) so I’ve decided to train him as a striker so he can have more game time. I’m looking forward to my injuries clearing up completely since we’ve played pretty well without our key players so things can only get better when they return.

Player of the Post

Step up Tomas Horava! He’s been a revelation this month after a shaky start to his Hull career. What makes things better is that he played out of position and still performed really well on a couple of occasions, so round of applause for him!

Now onto the most important part, the table, or rather the top 6 of the table. We had a wobble but recovered well with a brilliant November, but did that wobble cost us?

It did cost us, but not too badly. We may have lost top spot but it’s not as if Burnley ran away with it, they’re only top by 1 goal! Doncaster seem to be in it for the long haul too which is surprising since I thought they would have dropped off the pace by now. QPR have had an almighty dip in form since I knocked them off top spot and if Nottingham Forest and the team in 7th win then Rangers won’t even be in the play-off places any more. Leicester are up there too but you’d expect that with the finances they’ve got behind them.

Speaking of finances I thought I’d end today’s post by taking a look at Hull’s finances…

As you can see things aren’t great since the clubs cash has steadily declined and over £10million has gone so far, but there is a reason for this. The club was in quite a lot of debt and in order to get rid of the debt quickly the chairman is paying almost £2million off it a month which means by the end of the 2012 season Hull will be debt free. When you consider the amount of money being paid out for the debt each month, the club hardly makes a loss at all so things should be great in Hull in the years to come after 2012!

Well that’s all for now!

Thanks for reading!