benjii

I don't particularly. I would like to see a general erosion of all stupid religions.

It does look like we're stuck for now. It's just that most intelligent people see your "solution" for the block-headed idiocy that it is and have a bit more gumption about them. They see that becoming unstuck won't happen by running around persecuting vast swathes of the population.

The trust purchased shares in the new football club company with its donations. Each donation was £1,000 and each share was £1,000. The trust had enough donations to buy just over half the shares, I think. The President's bought the rest, again kn the basis of £1,000 per share (but they each own and benefit individually from their shares - there was no collective "Presidents" body). When more money was needed, Presidents subscribed to new shares, of the same class, meaning that the trust shareholding was diluted to under 50%. Eisner has agreed to give the trust and the Presidents £1k for each share. The trust will distribute this money back to the donees in accordance with their individual donations. There's also another offer from Eisner where instead of the £1k now, you get a smaller initial payment but potentially more in the long-run if the club achieves certain footballing targets.

I've told him this before. It's a bit complicated for him, I think.

Ah, the old "it's just a football forum", retreat.

Like I said before, a terrorist's wet-dream. That's what you are.

No, I don't think that's right. They are all the same category of shares so you can't be "under-represented" in terms of voting rights. The Trust may have been over-represented on the board though. Presumably the Presidents that voted "no" are ones who actually wanted to make a decent profit on their shares at some point.

Nelly. I love the way Chinese choose obsolete English names. Makes me chuckle.

So, expand on the solution?

I'm happy enough in my current job. If our competitor offered me three times my wage I would go.

He got them a good home "bounce" but they remained useless away from home and when the pressure was on in crunch games they were awful. Any decision would have to be based on his whole career, not just his time at Hull but I don't think his time at Hull makes him markedly more attractive than he would have been previously; maybe a little, for now knowing the league a bit, but that's about it.

The Pied sub made sense. He was brought on to hug the touch line and get crosses in. Obviously Jay Rod, Long or Sims would have potentially been better but none of those were available at the time. I loved the bloke behind me baying for Clasie or Hojbjerg to come on instead, like they are renowned for goals/assists.

Venables? Likes to attack, tactically astute, players love him, good interview bants, not foreign.

Very cynical but not beyond the realms of possibility!

It wasn't our only chance in the first half. Far from it.

You seem to be confusing "style" as a description of how we play and "style" as an abstract concept.

That is a fair point actually, although arguably more telling in defence than attack. I said before the match, "I bet they score a header".

I like a difficult away game first. It's a free hit and you might catch them a bit rusty. Then ideally a nondescript home match. WBA, Watford, Stoke, Bournemouth etc.

Not a problem if Forster, Long, Jay Rod go. I like Tadic but I also want to see Boufal given some more support and worked into the side as an integral part so wouldn't be too annoyed if Tadic leaves. Opens up a bit more space for Sims, as well, who I think could be really good. Bertrand... well, it's a shame but he's been a bit half-arsed lately so no point losing any sleep over it. Cedric - again, a shame but I think we could sign a decent enough replacement. He's a good player but he's not so good that he will be really hard to replace. The real disappointment will be if VVD leaves, obviously.

Part of the problem is that lack of goals breeds lack of goals. There have been plenty of matches this season where we've played pretty well for the first half but just not stuck it in the net. I'd wager that in quite a few of those matches, had we done so, we may well have rolled over teams in the second half and scored more. In fact, when I can be bothered I might go back and look at the matches where we scored in the first half and see what happened. Although off the top of my head, now I think about it, I remember the Spurs match where we scored first then got stuffed. So I might not bother.

I didn't say it was. I said we had a clear style in response to your completely inaccurate description of our style, following a suggestion that there wasn't one.

It's not wholly attributable to a "blip in the system". Missing penalties, missing chances and crossing badly are nothing to do with a "system". Redmond often fails to deliver a decent cross and the final ball from Tadic and Cedric is pretty eratic too. Bertrand is usually reliable but he was a culprit yesterday as well.

Yes, thank you. I hadn't seen that when I wrote my post. The double save from Butland yesterday.... if we had finished one of those chances it would have been a beautiful goal. It was a fluid and incisive move involving a number of players. Puel's job is to set the team up to maximise our control of the match and nullify the opposition. In the vast majority of games we have done that well. Unfortunately, when you don't score it means you are always on the edge of defeat and nerves and pressure build up. You could say we should have reverted to more percentage football but, frankly, what's the point? We still wouldn't have finished any higher and I doubt we would have got to the league cup final. Puel was clearly recruited with a mandate to try to impose a style on our play. We haven't really had a style since Poch left because Koeman never really looked beyond the next match and was an arch pragmatist. Fair enough, that's a valid approach, but I don't think it's what Les et al really want long-term. Now, you can say it hasn't worked, which is legitimate but that's as much down to the personnel available as the manager IMO.

No, not at all. Do you actually watch the matches? The style is clearly to build along the deck, through midfield, using short passing where possible and then to create openings through either interchanging around the box or creating two-on-ones out wide. We tend to do that quite well. Where it usually goes wrong is the final pass or the final finish.