TC Q+A (with D-ru)
D-ru’s asked a couple of questions over the past weeks, so it’s only fair I have a bash at answering them:

1. People continue to call Hull "resurgent" or whatever. I'm looking at the table and I still see us right in the relegation battle still. We've played 1 more game then everyone at the bottom as well.

I agree. I’ve said in this blog several times that we shouldn’t really be getting carried away with a few wins (as good as they were). Particularly when you look at the coming games, there’s a very good chance we could be back in the bottom three come the New Year. That’s not being negative, just realistic.

2. I was a huge hater of the Bullard move. He was right off an injury when we picked him up and I felt like he hadn't shown enough to warrant a 5M fee. With that said he came in and completely changed the dynamic of our team. SO I was wrong. However, now that he is down again I'm beginning to wonder if it was such a good move?

Because Hull City have relatively little financial muscle (even when Paul Duffen was frittering cash away), we have to shop at a certain market of signing. The only way we can get players better than that level is to take a punt on someone unproven (like say, Zayatte), with a history of trouble making (Marlon King), or past it/injury prone (Vennegoor of Hesselink, Bullard, Gardner).

Top quality players with no risk cost tens of millions of pounds, money we don’t have.
Therefore, the Bullard deal was a calculated gamble, if he plays, we’re a much better team, and the gamble is that we get enough games out of him to stay up. Time will tell, but at least this injury isn’t the same knee he hurt before, and is reasonably short term. It’s simple; if we stay up, great buy, if we go down, rubbish gamble. That’s football management.

3. With Bullard out and Hull seemingly slipping a bit, what do you think we need to do to turn the ship around?

Obviously having Bullard back will make a big difference. Other than that, honestly I think we’re doing ok at the moment. The home form is much better than last season, and while we’re not world beaters, we look capable of staying up. Perhaps Phil Brown could try and be a little more positive.

I think we’d have more chance of getting more points with a more positive outlook than we’ve had in the last couple of games. As we showed at the Emirates last season, the way to get results against the better teams is to ‘have a go’ and try to get them on the back foot. Hopefully we’ll start with this on Saturday night.

4. I don't hear enough to follow Hull's Finances so is there any hope for a Jan. transfer help? Would you say we will be buyers/sellers/or holders?

Adam Pearson has already explained that we have little cash to splash in the January transfer window, and several players will be leaving the club. Maybe this might free up the cash to bring in a couple of loan signings, or maybe a couple of buys from the lower leagues, but anyone expecting the Tigers to be throwing around millions of pounds will be very much disappointed.

Unless we can scoop up a bargain in January, I can’t see the first team improving much beyond what we have. I don’t think we desperately have to sell our better players, but if someone came in with four or five million pounds for say, Geo, then I think we’d definitely give it some serious thought. I’d like to see a better right back, centre back, right winger, centre mid and striker in an ideal world, but as I’ve already said, there’s no way we’ll be able to afford that. The best way we can improve our first team to any great degree is to get Bullard fit and playing every week.