hull city chairman resigns

Hull City appear to be under fire from all quarters over the last few days, malicious rumours that manager Phil Brown had been sacked following a string of poor results in the Premier League circulated wildly earlier in the week.

Brown had been openly booed by Hull fans following the draw with bottom club Portsmouth at the weekend and the club felt the need to put out an official statement on Wednesday that the manager had not been sacked. Brown will be holding a press conference today and is sure to face some pertinent questioning from the press.

The release of a statement from Hull City’s accountants Deloitte could not have been revealed at a worse time for the club who currently occupy the 18th place in the Premiership. Deloitte reported that the club needed £23million to meet current liabilities.

The final straw perhaps for Chairman Paul Duffen who today has resigned his position with the club. A statement from Hull City says;

“The club has received a letter of resignation from Paul Duffen, executive chairman of Hull City AFC and Superstadium Management Company Ltd, which has been accepted and is effective immediately. The club wishes to express its gratitude to Paul for his outstanding contribution as chairman during a period of unprecedented success for Hull City AFC.”

In a bizarre twist, rumours abound that former Tigers chairman Adam Pearson may be about to replace Duffen at Hull, following his own resignation from Derby County.

Pearson had previously sold the club to a consortium headed by Duffen in 2007.

It is a powerful start for Tottenham, in direct contrast to this time last year when everything conspired against Juande Ramos who eventually lost his job at Spurs before taking control of Real Madrid for half a season.

One thing the experts all consider when talking about league winning teams is ‘depth of squad’ and Spurs must have the biggest in the league. For three seasons/managers at Spurs have bought about three players for every one they sell so there must be some squad still there.

That doesn’t stop Harry Redknapp from being linked to every player that enters the market, the latest football news says he is after buying Arjen Robben from Madrid. While there is little substance to the story it may be different if Spurs have maintained their form into the January transfer window.

If they are still top come January, Redknapp will be determined to show his skill in the attracting the best players to the club. It will be like me playing fantasy football for Harry, spend every penny available and to hell with the defence.

I wonder what the football betting odds are on Spurs to win the league, I wouldn’t bet against it, but it really is early days and lets face it anything can happen. I do expect a closer group of teams in the top six or eight this season, from the limited action I have seen most teams have shown improvement on last season.

However and not withstanding Arsenal’s fine result on Saturday, I am predicting that we will see the top four become six, and Liverpool will lead the pack. I do expect both Spurs and Manchester City to make a big impact this season and look forward to the fight with Arsenal to secure the fourth place.

At the other end newcomers Wolves, Birmingham and Burnley all have a win under their belt’s and what an incredible result it was for Burnley to beat the champions Manchester United.

Right now they are all pretty much unknown quantities and maybe capable of the odd surprise, but how regular will that become? I expect all three to be involved in the traditional end of season relegation battle  along with Stoke, Bolton and Hull, with the latter trio going down.

Jose Mourinho

Mourinho has also said that neither Tottenham or Arsenal have been in touch with Inter Milan regarding the signing of Patrick Vierra. Both clubs have been verbal over offering the midfielder a pay as you play deal over the last few weeks. “If they want him, they have to let us know,” he said. “I have to say until this moment, no Tottenham, no Arsenal. They have not contacted us.”

The Premier League will honour Sir Bobby Robson with one minutes applause at each of it’s opening games on the weekend of August 15 and 16.

Hull City have completed the double signing of Seyi Olofinjana from Stoke City and Jozy Altidore from Villareal. Olofinjana has signed a four year deal with Hull, the 29 year old opting against a move to Monaco in a £3million deal, while 19 year old Altidore has agreed a season long loan from Spanish La Liga side Villareal.

Burnley have signed 19 year old Fernando Guerrero on a one season loan from Ecuador club Independiente Del Valle. Guerrrero was formerly at Real Madrid as an under 19 before returning back to Ecuador. A permanent contract is on offer if he impresses.

Twenty year old Chelsea winger Scott Sinclair has agreed to go on loan to Wigan for a season. He spent half of last season helping rivals Birmingham in their Championship title race.

Liverpool expect the signing of Italian midfielder Alberto Aquilani to go through with no hitches, having agreed a fee of around £20million with Roma. The player will take a medical with the Reds this week.

Manchester City boss Mark Hughes is concerned that Carlos Tevez may not be fully fit for the start of the season, after the player slipped over in the shower.

Arsenal’s inability to score despite having a lions share of the game left them languishing in fourth place in the title race, eighteen points behind the champions and once again signalling a poor season for Arsene Wenger’s young charges.

United held tight and had enough chances of their own to win the game, but a draw was enough to see them collect their eighteenth championship win to equal the record set by Liverpool at the highest level of the domestic game. After collecting the Premier League trophy, Sir Alex Ferguson asked; “Does it get better than this?”. Most of us can only imagine.

West Bromwich Albion became the first Premier League casualty after losing 2-0 to Liverpool at home. The proud Albion fans were still in full voice, as they have been all season and they will be sadly missed from the top tier.

The final two relegation places will be decided in the last game of the season, it doesn’t get any more exciting than that. Middlesbrough will need a miracle to stay up without any doubt. Hull, who did so well in the first half of the season have barely earned a point in the second half, face Manchester United in the final game. With the Champions League final on the following Wednesday, Phil Brown will be hoping to face a weakened United team.

Newcastle are the other club involved in the battle, they will feel they have a good chance of staying up as they face an Aston Villa team that has dropped into sixth place in the league after a brief spell of separating the ‘big four’. They were held to a 1-1 draw with Middlesbrough  at the weekend and the Magpies will need at least the same to survive.

On Saturday at Stamford Bridge for the first ten or fifteen minutes of Hull’s visit to Chelsea, it looked as though the away team were in for a right battering. Chelsea threw everything forward in a dominating start to the game and Hull defended for all they were worth. Then the game turned around and Hull pushed back the Chelsea wing backs deep into their own half and suddenly the game opened up.

Hull had not come to defend although they did prove that they can get men back in numbers when needed, but they were prepared to attack Chelsea at all times and looked more up for making a game of it than their more illustrious opponents. This is how Hull have played all season and while the points may not be coming as readily as in the first half of the season, it is refreshing that they have stuck to their attacking football style throughout.

They have picked up some unlikely scalps along the way and on Saturday, Chelsea could have had no complaints if they had ended the game empty handed. In the remainder of the season Hull face at least ten games that they are capable of winning and the way they are playing they deserve not to be caught up in the relegation dogfight come the end of the season.

Phil Brown and his team deserve all the plaudits that they have earned so far and I take my hat off to them for doing it in great style. Long may it continue.

Great news for Hull City boss Phil Brown, who has also confirmed that on loan player Kamil Zayatte has signed a three year deal with the club, while left back Andy Dawson has also signed a new contract.

Aston Villa have agreed a deal to sign England football veteran Emile Heskey from Wigan for a fee of around £3.5million. If the deal goes through Heskey will be reunited with Martin O’Neill who nurtured the striker as a teenager while they were at Leicester City in the late nineties.

O’Neill said of the striker: “It would be very difficult not to support someone who was brilliant for you. He was a young kid at Leicester and was fantastic. We were desperately disappointed when he moved but he said he wanted to go and play with Michael Owen at Liverpool, but he did his part for Leicester.”

Wigan have also lost striker Marlon King who has agreed a loan deal to join Middlesbrough, in a move that seems likely to see Egyptian player Mido going in the opposite direction  on a similar  six month deal. Steve Bruce had intimated earlier in the week that Wilson Palacios would be the only player leaving the Latics during the January transfer window,  but  he has  now lost two more  forwards in as many days.

Mido has enjoyed an up and down career since first coming to the Premier League  but has yet to show any real consistency  to accompany his obvious skills, maybe Steve Bruce can get more out of him than previous managers have been able to.

Didier Drogba is rumoured to have been offered double his current salary to join Manchester City, but for now the moody striker will remain at Chelsea, who along with Liverpool are apparently being lined up for takeover by  two very different groups of billionaires, both carrying huge suitcases stuffed with cash.

And finally the former England football manager best known for his catch phrase ‘Do I not like that?’, Graham Taylor has been welcomed back to former club Watford as a non executive director, where he will link up once again with Elton John.

For me, the three teams that came up from the Coca-Cola Championship, Hull City, Stoke City and West Brom, are favourites to go straight back down and be relegated come next May, with Bolton being ‘in the mix’ for the whole season.

I feel confident that Chelsea will win the Premier League due to the pain of being runners up in three competitions last season. Manchester United swill be second, with Liverpool being third.

I think Arsenal and Tottenham will battle it out for fourth place; and that will depend on whether Berbatov stays at White Hart Lane or, if he goes to Manchester United as everyone now believes will definitely happen, who they buy to replace him.

If David Villa doesn’t want to come to the White Hart Lane then maybe they can coax Steve Archibald out of retirement!