radford

I agree that they bought bad players, but Radford also has the likes of Colborn, Carvell etc sat in the stands. Recruitment has been a joke for many years under several coaches and both Hetherington & Pearson.

In a nutshell.

Something has to give now. The bottom line is that last season despite issues we finished 6th and got to Wembley. If we had turned up there we would have beaten Wigan and Gentle would have been a hero forever. We blooded more youngsters under Gentle than we have in ages (apart from when forced to do so through injury) and we won a play off. I will always believe that Radford created a situation which led to the debacle in Huddersfield and now we are reaping what was sown.

Those of you banging on about the "mess that Radford inherited" where is that coming from? Radford mates. He had one thing and one thing only in mind when he took over and that was to rid the club of all things Gentle. Regardless of who or what they were. Instead of building from what was a solid foundation he has completely wrecked it. It's like having a cracked window on the 34th floor of the Shard and pulling it all down to the ground floor and starting again.
We will struggle massively next season under LR for crowds and credibility. Ok Snyed and Pryce potentially good but who in all honesty without blinkers thinks this current coaching set up will get them playing how we all know they can. I would say not many.

A good coach will work with what he has got and play to its strengths. 21 games in and three p*** poor friendliest and our coach has no more an idea of who his squad is let alone his top 17 than the man on the moon.

I am not sure what AP really thinks but I know for certain that he has to act soon or his pockets are going to have to get lighter and lighter. Middle 8 obscurity and away days at Donny against Radfords cast offs beckon.

But at least we lived through the Walsh era.

Agree. I reckon McRae had his own ear trumpet direct into Pearson's ear as a result of their relationship when Pearson was at City and McRae at Hull before. He was the only man Pearson knew in rugby and is very credible verbally so he hired him with complete faith in him. To a layman McRae talks the talk very convincingly and personably. I think Pearson trusted him implicitly partly because he was the only egg in the basket in those early days.

So I think that McRae was listened to more than Gentle. What with that and the Radford influence, Gentle was in an uncomfortable position I believe. Just my interpretation, of course.

what baffles me is that back in the day Pearson binned Jan Molby and later Phil Parkinson very quickly at big expense from Hull City because it wasn't working, has he lost his balls?

Agree. All the good Gentle did is unravelling before our eyes.

This is what's baffling me, too.

Spot on.

It's not really, it was well known at the time to a lot of city fans that it wasn't Pearsons money at city in those days he was just the front man, perhaps he's a bit more careful now he's spending his own cash at hull

Well, his tardiness in failing to react to what the vast majority can see means he's going to be pouring it down the drain faster than a 100 foot fallpipe.

Ridiculous argument. Pearson's currently doing the very opposite of protecting his investment.

pearson has spent more paying up coach and player contracts than he would ever have needed to bring in the right coach and players in the first place. Pay cheap, pay twice

Adam really needs to get up to speed on the law of diminishing returns. Unless he acts very quickly his investment in the club will be worth nothing, as the fan base will disappear. Action taken now could avoid that, but is his pride not allowing him to admit that he's made a monumental mistake.
Come on Adam, we're behind you for now, but failure to act will alienate the best supporters in the league.

For me the whole squad structures and playing ability has gone down since Andy hay left the club.I'd love to know if that was gentle's decision or something else that he knew was happening behind the scenes ??

but on the other side, Pearson has more money himself these days following selling his City shares.

I don't think he's intentionally ran the club on the cheap, just made several bad decisions. Even though we have a poor squad this season it will still have cost a decent sum to sign Sa, Rankin, Colborn & Carvell. I think his decision to employ Radford was an ideological one, he did the same 'local club' thing with City by appointing Barmby.

Yep, good point. However, one exception to that would be Arundel and Crookes, neither figured a great deal with the Crooks/Lineham combo. Not sure about Crookes but I hear that the Arundel money is obscene.

Maybe so, but again that doesn't explain our terrible season. We might have wasted money that could have been spent on better players, but regardless this is not a bottom 3 squad.

Spot on. There are much weaker squads doing better than we are.

You seem to have hit the nail firmly on the head there - is it a question of motivation or dodgy coaching/training methods from the coaching staff ? The squad seems pretty strong generally so they should be doing better I would say. But it's easy to say, isn't it ?
Would it be fair to say good young players like Lineham haven't improved that much over the past twelve months ?

I don't think the squad is that good,we lack anyone with leadership qualities,no one with a kicking game and a pack of forewards with no real hardmen who can intimidate an opposition .

For me, the squad isn't the best around but it's certainly capable of better than we're currently getting.

Tbf, in Linehams case he has been injured for much of those 12 months.

The league tables don't lie.

Yer to a degree I see what your saying it's a better squad than 12th but before the season started I thought we would be around the 9/10 position. Like you say we have no halfbacks no decent distribution from dummy half, I can't imagine any opposing forwards worried about facing our pack other than Ellis who plays it tough it's a very workmanlike but average pack. The rumours are 10 leaving I could easily add another 5 or 6 players who I wouldn't be uspet if they we're to leave