PL 16/17 Predictions Series: Hull City

My new series looks at the participants of the latest Premier League season. For previous posts, see below:

Arsenal, Bournemouth, Burnley, Crystal Palace, Chelsea, Everton

Last season
After a disappointing relegation from the top division, as many teams do, Hull struggled to come to grips with the fast paced and unpredictable nature of the Championship. However, having put together a strong run of form in the middle of the year, the Tigers found themselves firmly in the relegation shake-up, fading slightly to finish in the playoffs.

Having narrowly dispatched Derby 3-2, despite having a 3-0 lead from the first leg, Hull travelled to Wembley for the most valuable match in football against Sheffield Wednesday. Despite a tense encounter, the Tigers secured a 1-0 win thanks to Mohamed Diame, ensuring an immediate return to the top tier.

Backroom setup
Following this success, and the resignation of Roy Hodgson as England manager, Steve Bruce found himself on the shortlist for the next national coach. Naturally, this turned the head of the Englishman, publicly stating so in interviews. However, soon he would find that far from securing the England job, he actually didn't have a club role, with differences with the board seeing him leave Hull.

With Mike Phelan taking caretaker control of the Tigers for the start of the season, he must see it as a great job application to get off to a good start in the Premier League, but a poor one could be extremely damaging, both to his and the club's return.

Pre-season
Despite the uncertainty surrounding their manager, the Hull team have enjoyed a successful pre-season, though it must be said that the majority of their matches have involved teams well below their level. Starting with a disappointing 0-0 draw against Grimsby, Hull have since secured wins against North Ferriby United (2-0), Mansfield Town (1-0), Scunthorpe United (2-0) and Nottingham Forest (2-1), with another draw against Barnsley (2-2).

However, their greatest challenges came in their last two games. Having travelled to Austria, the Tigers made the trip worth it with an excellent 3-1 win over Turkish side Caykur Rizaspor, with Abel Hernandez netting a brace. However, in arguably their most difficult test, they came up short against Torino in a narrow 2-1 defeat.

Squad and signings
Not much to report as yet in all honesty. Just Will Mannion from AFC Wimbledon in, and just Sone Aluko and Ryan Taylor released, while Mohamed Diame made a £4m move to Newcastle. Surely they'll make something happen in the next few weeks when the next manager is appointed?

Tactics
Without a new manager, it's difficult to say how Hull will play, but given that the majority of the side remain from that relegated the season before last, they have to do something differently. Using the pace of Abel Hernandez may have an advantage, but you do fear for the Tigers without any clear direction.

Predictions

Uncertainty is a form killer, and if you don't have any idea about how to get form in the first place, it may well destroy the club's momentum before the season even begins. Regardless of who is brought in, two weeks is nowhere near enough time to put together a team, so expect a sluggish start. Let's just hope it's not terminal.

Final position: 19th

Summer Transfer Window: Winners and Losers

And with the passing of the transfer deadline, the scrummage to secure the final additions to squads is over. For my review of this window, see the story here. But who has come out best? Which clubs are now set out for a tilt at the league, and who is destined for mid-table mediocrity? Or worse, a parachute payment jump into the uncertain waters of the Championship?

In order to determine the winners and losers in the transfer market, I will be marking each team's dealings out of 10 on five different topics: big name (relative to the club), value for money, team balance, player retention and absence of panic buying. From these rankings, I will be able to determine a league table of their transfer dealings. These will almost certainly not be indicative of how the league will go, but do give some indication of how well the clubs, and more importantly, their finances, are run.

Team	Big Name	Value	Team Balance	Player Retention	No Panic-buys	Total
Chelsea	9	6	8	7	8	38
Hull City	8	6	7	7	6	34
Stoke City	7	8	5	6	7	33
Manchester City	6	5	7	7	8	33
Newcastle United	6	7	6	6	8	33
Arsenal	8	6	5	8	5	32
Everton	7	6	6	8	5	32
Swansea City	6	6	7	6	6	31
Liverpool	7	6	7	5	5	30
Sunderland	6	6	6	5	7	30
Tottenham Hotspur	5	6	6	6	7	30
Queens Park Rangers	7	5	6	7	5	30
West Ham United	7	5	5	7	6	30
Leicester City	5	6	6	6	6	29
Aston Villa	2	7	7	7	6	29
Manchester United	9	4	6	4	5	28
Crystal Palace	4	6	6	7	7	28
West Bromwich Albion	5	6	5	5	7	28
Burnley	1	6	6	7	6	26
Southampton	5	5	6	2	4	22

Winners
Chelsea - Jose Mourinho knew his transfer targets at the start of the window, and he got his men. Though he may have had to pay a little over the odds for the likes of Fabregas and Diego Costa, the early £30m fees they had to stump up pale in comparison to the ridiculous figures seen out of Manchester United. Calm on deadline day, Chelsea's new recruits balance their team excellently, and they will be a force to be reckoned with come May.

Hull City - Perhaps surprising considering the deadline day chaos to come out of the club, Hull have also had a successful window. Their late signings of Hatem Ben Arfa, Gaston Ramirez and Abel Hernandez add significant strength in depth and could yet prove to be the key in their fight to reach the top half of the table.

Stoke City - Based mostly on the value for money aspect of the test, Stoke's signings up front of Mame Biram Diouf and Bojan will complement the creative talents of Marko Arnautovic behind. Mark Hughes went into the window knowing he needed goals, and if Diouf's stunner against Man City is anything to go by, they now have plenty of those in their front line.

Manchester City - Unlike their city neighbours and rivals, City got their transfer dealings well and truly done with before the final days of the window. With a mixture of bargain deals for Bacary Sagna and Frank Lampard, and big ticket transactions like Fernando and Eliaquim Mangala, City's squad is probably the strongest in depth in the league. The prices may have been slightly steep, but there was not a moment of panic from Manuel Pellegrini. But would you ever expect it?!

Newcastle United - Rounding off the top five is the Toon. Despite constant complaints (and in many regards, completely justified) towards owner Mike Ashley, the fact remains that Newcastle have continued to bring in new (albeit consistently French) talent. Remy Cabella and Emanuele Rivière look like excellent acquisitions, and I feel they could be challenging the European places come May.

Losers

Southampton - I don't care what anyone says, you lose five of your biggest assets from the previous season, you're going to struggle. Though the Saints have seemed to dip into the market with some success, it will take time for those players to gel. The panic buying in the final hours only caps a remarkably busy, if a little traumatic, window for Southampton.

Burnley - It's a great shame, but Burnley simply don't have the funds to attract the calibre of players brought in by sides around them. If your biggest signing of the window is George Boyd, a benchwarmers at Hull the previous season, it's less of a marquee and more of a tiny gazebo. That they held onto Danny Ings is somewhat of a success, but I fear the Championship beckons for the ginger Mourinho.

West Bromwich Albion - This was fairly simple. Overpaying on your big name signing, whose name isn't very large anyway? Check. The exit of a number of your key defenders, leaving you threadbare at the back? Check. Bringing in a manager who, though well respected in the game, has little experience of Premier League management? Check. And the prognosis? A season of struggle awaits.

Crystal Palace - Though I can't be too critical of the final days of the transfer window at Selhurst Park, as the upheaval off the field will have affected transfers, the fact remains that the window was a shambles for the Eagles. Bringing Wilfried Zaha in may prove to be an excellent bit of business, but he is a risk. As for the rest, slim pickings. Though they held onto the majority of their key men from last campaign, I'm expecting them to slide slowly down the table.

Manchester United - Controversial? Perhaps, but hear me out. Though they have undoubtedly brought in the biggest names of the window, the expense to which they had to go to get them was absurd. Being a lifelong blue, I have had to put up with many a United fan argue that City have bought their league titles with their huge spending in recent windows, and I have always come back with the same argument. £5 is £5, whether you spend it in 10 minutes or 10 years. United have consistently spent medium amounts on players, and their historical total far exceeds the amount City have spent. The fact that City have spent it in five years is irrelevant - they have used what they have to the best of their ability.

It will be interesting to see if the same hypocrite United fans later their opinions now they are the ones spending. My earlier argument means I cannot be upset at United's spending without being a hypocrite myself, and I have no problem with them flexing their financial muscle. I simply find it amusing that they are spending that amount to buy 4th, rather than the titles that City are accused of buying.

Nevertheless, the fact remains that we have witnessed a multi-record breaking transfer window. Some clubs have made wise calls, others not so much, but it will be interesting to see whether my transfer table gives any indication of the trajectory of the clubs involved.

Premier League 2013/2014: So Did The Fixtures Mean Anything? (Relegation)

Those of you who have been following my blog (and I thank you for it - I know it's been irregular), will possibly recall some posts I did about nine months ago about the newly announced fixtures for the 2013/2014 Premier League season, and how they may affect the three main races: the title, 4th place and relegation. I did a post on each, and I will now review this as the season draws to a close, and give an indication of who is now the favourite based on the final four fixtures.

This third and final post in the series focuses on the battle to avoid the dreaded drop to the Championship. As I am looking at 7 different teams, this post will be a little less in depth than the other two, but hopefully just as informative and interesting. To find the other posts, click on the links below:

Title race
Champions League battle

First 5:

In my post nine months ago, I said that the relegation battle will involve the most teams, with a range of 7 potentially involved. Having looked at the opening fixtures of the teams involved, I picked my bottom part of the table to be: Newcastle, Sunderland, Hull, Stoke, Crystal Palace, Cardiff and Aston Villa. After surprise results like Aston Villa's victory over Arsenal and Cardiff's win at home to Manchester City, this is how the bottom of the table lined up after five fixtures:

West Brom - 5pts (14th), West Ham - 5pts (15th), Cardiff - 5pts (16th), Norwich - 4pts (17th), Fulham - 4pts (18th), Crystal Palace - 3pts (19th) and Sunderland - 1pt (20th)

So basically, I was way off. I didn't even factor in West Brom, West Ham, Norwich or Fulham on the fixtures, meaning that  Stoke (10th), Hull (11th) Newcastle (12th) and most surprisingly Aston Villa (13th) were not even in the list. Despite this, five games can help someone's season, but it cannot decide whether they stay up and go down (until you get to the final five of course!). As a result, I was not too concerned with my lack of accuracy, but the second check would perhaps give us a better indication of how wrong I was!

Middle 5:

The middle 5 (taken between the dates of 14th December and 1st January - the most congested period of the season) would hopefully provide me with an opportunity to reclaim some lost pride. Taken purely on these 5 fixtures, I came up with a mini table to show which teams will take the most points from this period. This would contribute to the table, but would not necessarily indicate who is destined for the drop. Based on the fixtures, I predicted that the mini table of 7 would look like this: Sunderland, Stoke, Newcastle, Aston Villa, Cardiff, Hull and Crystal Palace. In reality, it looked like this:

Newcastle (7pts), Sunderland (6pts), Hull (5pts), Stoke (5pts), Aston Villa (4pts), Cardiff (4pts), Crystal Palace (4pts)

Again, I was wrong. Though in my defence, not quite as badly wrong as I had initially been. Of the bottom three, I accurately predicted two, and managed to suggest that the two North East clubs would be well away from danger when the time came. Nevertheless, if we look at the table as a whole by the time we get to New Year's Day, we see a wholly different complexion: West Brom - 21pts (14th), Norwich - 20pts (15th), Fulham - 19pts (16th), Cardiff - 18pts (17th), Crystal Palace - 17pts (18th), West Ham - 15pts (19th), Sunderland - 14pts (20th). Whether this means my test is not as accurate as those for the Champions League or the title race (although read those to see the issues I have had!), I am not sure, but certainly it is some way from my initial expectations at the beginning of the season.

So what happened since?

Well, a lot. Two of the bottom three at that time ended completely safe and free of danger, with Crystal Palace pulling off a master stroke in hiring Tony Pulis (whose appointment I actually disagreed with at the time but shhhhh!) and West Ham relying on Big Sam Allardyce to get them out of it, which he duly did. Sunderland pulled off the greatest of great escapes, with the 2-2 draw at the Etihad, sparking the most incredible of results. Away wins at Chelsea and Manchester United, along with a home success against West Brom ensured that the Black Cats steered themselves out of what seemed an impossible situation with one match to spare. With Fulham and Cardiff unable to drag themselves from their hole (meaning that Felix Magath suffered his first relegation as a manager), it was Norwich that bore the brunt of the Sunderland escape. Their incredibly tough end to the season ultimately condemned them to the Championship, but it was the lack of fight in games involving sides around them that cost the Canaries their place in the top tier.

In the final five fixtures, I expected this to be the mini league table: Stoke, Aston Villa, Cardiff, Crystal Palace, Hull, Sunderland and Newcastle. However, incredible runs for Sunderland and Crystal Palace meant it ended like this:

Sunderland (12pts), Crystal Palace (8pts), Stoke City (7pts), Aston Villa (4pts), Cardiff (4pts), Newcastle (3pts), Hull (1pt)

And my prediction?

Overall, I predicted that all three of the promoted sides would return to the Championship based on the fixtures. However, it is almost never that this actually occurs, and this is another example. Crystal Palace's inspired managerial alteration kept them clear of danger, whilst Hull's consistency ensured that they would have a cup final day, along with a Premier League place to treasure. Other than Cardiff, I didn't even include the two sides that ended up going down, as I believed them to be relatively safe!

Final table: Newcastle - 49pts (10th), Crystal Palace - 45pts (11th), Sunderland - 38pts (14th), Aston Villa - 38pts (15th), Hull - 37pts (16th), Cardiff - 30pts (20th)

So in the end, an interesting, but inconsistent test. Fixtures are a good indicator of form, which is a good indicator of performance, but it doesn't always work out like that. With external affairs able to alter that in the flip of a switch (the ownership debacle at Leeds is the perfect example of this), there is only so much that looking at the fixtures can do. Nevertheless, it does go to show that whilst the fixture organisers attempt to be objective and unbiased, they inevitably disadvantage some teams more than others.

Hull City Tigers: Roaring Back To The Big Time

2012/2013: 2nd (Championship)

Transfer(s) In: Yannick Sagbo (Evian, Undisc), Danny Graham (Sunderland, Loan), Steve Harper (Newcastle, Free), Allan McGregor (Rangers, £2 Million), Curtis Davies (Birmingham, £2 Million), George Boyd (Peterborough, Free), Maynor Figueroa (Wigan Athletic, Free), Ahmed Elmohamedy (Sunderland, £2 Million), Calaum Jahraldo-Martin (Dulwich, Free), Tom Huddlestone (Tottenham, £5 Million), Jake Livermore (Tottenham, Loan), Mohamed Nagy (Al-Ahly, Loan), Medo (Al-Ahly, Loan)

Transfer(s) Out: Corry Evans (Blackburn Rovers, Undisc), Andy Dawson (Scunthorpe United, Free), Seyi Olofinjana (Sheffield Wednesday, Loan)

Transfers Review:

                                          As you can see from the lists above, Hull's incomings this campaign far outstrip their sales this summer. This clearly implies their intentions and their spending power, with their Egyptian owners clearly happy to splash the cash. In Yannick Sagbo and Danny Graham they have two strikers highly capable of scoring goals in the Premier League. The Tigers have also improved their defence, with Curtis Davies and Maynor Figueroa having the necessary Premier League experience to keep them in the league this year. Goalkeepers in McGregor and Harper will also be very useful in their first season back in the top flight.

                                          Similarly to the other two promoted clubs, Hull have managed to keep hold of many of their top players from their promotion winning season. Players like Sone Aluko and Robbie Brady will have been wanted by several other clubs, and Hull will do well to hold onto them until the end of the window. This, coupled with the incomings, leave Hull with a promising squad for survival at the end of May 2014.

Pre-Season:

                                            Hull's pre-season was dominated by the news that, due to the commercial benefits, the club's name would be changed, from the traditional Hull City AFC, to the more commerically attractive Hull City Tigers. This has been met by mixed reviews from the Hull City fans, and football fans in general. My personal opinion is that this can only be a negative move for football. I dislike the changing of the majority of stadium names (having lived in Newcastle I am well aware of the anger a name change can make-Sports Direct Arena!), and I think that changing the name of the club is an even worse step. Even more annoying, rather than just changing the ending from 'City' to another generic name like 'United', they have added the club's nickname 'Tigers' to the end. In my opinion, this makes Hull City sound more like an MLS team, where ridiculous names like San Jose Earthquakes and Montreal Impact are commonplace. I would hate to see a Premier League with names like 'Manchester Volcanoes' or the 'Chelsea Rhinos'. Whilst Hull's suffix at least has some relevance to the club, other foreign owners may not be so considerate of the traditions of the club.

                                             In terms of their matches, Hull started their preparations for their first season in the Premier League for 3 years with a couple of matches against Championship opposition. Matches that the newly promoted Premier League side would have expected to win. However, they left those matches without a victory. Beginning with a boring 0-0 draw against Sheffield Wednesday, they moved onto Birmingham, where they lost a tight game 2-1. After these disappointments, they moved back to their home ground, with a final match against Real Betis. There they produced a much more promising performance, with goals from Danny Graham and Sone Aluko before the break. George Boyd topped the match off with a third, as Hull won 3-0. This is the perfect platform for the start of the Premier League season, as the Tigers will want to carry their form into the league.

Key Players:

                                              The first player that I believe will be able to make the transition from the Championship to the Premier League is George Boyd. The ex-Peterborough man only recently made the step up from relegation battle to promotion push, and I feel he will take the next step in his stride. Scoring on a regular basis, the Englishman quickly became an integral part of the Hull City setup, and he will continue to do so in the Premier League.

                                                Secondly, I think that Allan McGregor will play a crucial role in any success Hull has. A goalkeeper of proven ability and continental experience, McGregor will relish the opportunity to get back to the highest level of football, after a couple of years in the wildnerness in the Scottish lower leagues. He will also be critical in terms of defensive organisation and will aid in the keeping any clean sheets and victories the promoted side gets.

Key Fixture Dates:

24/08/2013: Hull vs Norwich
14/09/2013: Hull vs Cardiff
23/11/2013: Hull vs Crystal Palace
14/12/2013: Hull vs Stoke
18/01/2014: Norwich vs Hull
28/01/2014: Crystal Palace vs Hull
22/02/2014: Cardiff vs Hull
29/03/2014: Stoke vs Hull

Top Goalscorer:

                                                  After a season of anonymity since his break-through onto the Premier League scene, I strongly suspect that Danny Graham will find form again at Hull. At Swansea, he had proven that he had the ability to find the net on multiple occasions, and I expect him to recover that when given regular football. In his second season in the Premier League, neither Swansea, nor Sunderland provided the right fit for the English striker. Hull, I believe, will provide the right type of football for Graham to thrive.

Prediction:

                                                   Of all of the promoted teams, I fancy Hull to be the one to beat the drop. There is always one side that performs better than expected, and I fully expected this year to be Hull's year. If we remember the last time that Hull were promoted, they had a superb start only to fall to within points of relegation by the end of the season. I suspect that the same may be the case this time, but I am certain that most Hull fans would take that now if it were offered! Their experience and key members of the team mean that I believe that Hull are the best equipped of the three, and I think that there are three teams that are worse than the Tigers.

Hull City 2013/2014: 15th