Hull City Preview, Put Downs Part 2 & The Transfer List

Brighten my Northern Sky
So, the opening day plum tie is ours then. Hull City, not too long ago staring conference football in the face, broke my heart by beating my now-local 'sympathy team' Bristol City to the Premiership. And here they are, trembling in their boots at the thought of playing the mighty Fulham at The KC & The Sunshine Band Stadium. Possibly. Actually, considering their strike force consists of Dean Windass (who needs to be mummified between games), 'trembling in their boots' does not seem a wholly unreasonable course of action for them to take before playing any Premiership team, including ourselves.

To the team selection, then. As we currently have enough strikers to launch a 'liberation mission' in Georgia (have they any oil? Or any decent centre backs?), my proposal is to go 4-3-2-1. Attacking football is a Woy Hodgson specialty, and should not be too risky against a team seemingly unable to mount any sort of counter attacking response (*desperately rams knuckles on plank of wood*). This also lets us utilise all of our non-double booked star players bar Simon Davies. Finally, it would serve as a good chance for Erik Nevland to prove himself as a decent Emile Heskey/'Let the ball bounce off him to the little guys'-player, which I suspect would suit him. So, here it goed then:

Fulham V. Hull: F-Side Starting Line-up

Schwarzer

Volz Hughes Hangeland Konchesky

Andreassen Murphy

Bullard

A. Johnson Zamora
Nevland

Substitutes:
Stockdale
Stoor
Kallio
Davies
Davis
Dempsey
Healy

I Predict a Riot
Considering our recent away form, a win could definitely be on the cards if we come out swinging. I'll go for 2 goals for us and one for the home team late on.

F-Side says: Fulham 2-1 Hull


Your Team Sucks
Continuing the mediocre ZING-ing, here's the second part of the F-Side's 'unique' 3-observation preview.

The "People's Club"
1. The above, self-appointed and thoroughly arrogant nickname. Sounds a bit like the "People's Republic" of North Korea.
2. They FUCK have Timmy COCK Howard ASS! SHITCAKES! in goal FURRY DICKBURGER!. (And the Blog reaches a new low-FF)
3. Looking quite light up front, even though their main striker needs to be lifted to work by Zeppelin.

'I call it a Liger'
1. "No, seriously, who else got promoted?"
2. I may have mentioned this already, but Dean Windass is getting on a bit.
3. Will be a serious challenger... To Derby's "Lowest amount of points"-record. HAH!

Her Majesty's Prison, Merseyside
1. "Sign on... Sign Oooooon... with a pen, in your hand..."
2. "Do the Social know you're here?"
3. Prodding sticks in Dirk Kuyt to see where his face is.

Hu-Man Rights Violators City
1."Stephen Ireland, where's your gran?"
2. Where was Bernard Manning when his club needed him... to stand on the goalline against Middlesbrough, bounce balls of his enormous gut and hurl distracting abuse at Alfonso Alves? Sure, he was dead, but that can't be an excuse, can it?
3. Thaksin Shinawatra must have been offered the role of a Bond villain somewhere in the past, especially for his talent in brutally abandoning his henchmen upon the slightest of failures. "Silence Sven! You have disappointed me for the last time!" "But-eh master, we-eh have-eh done the double over Yoo-nited for the first-eh time in..." "FEED HIM TO THE SHARKS!!!"

Manchester Red Devils
1. Alex Ferguson getting his nose all alcoholicy over 'tapping up' in the Ronaldo farce. I'm sure the good folk at Aston Villa (Yorke) and West Ham (Tevez) would know how he feels.
2. Staying with Tevez, his and Rooney's finishing makes the US Army look like they have a good 'precision strike' record.
3. Has anyone seen Ryan Giggs's cheeky cameo as Josef Goebbels in the very good German film, Downfall?

More on that as it comes in.

Arrivals and Departures
From now on, here we will list Fulham players hanging by a threat/needing a 'new challenge' at Stoke, as well as those from other clubs we can use.
Hit the road, Jack:
Chris Baird. And to think that just last year I referred to him as 'very good'. Strange times.
Collins John. Big, fast, stupid, as predictable in result as an invasion by Liechtenstein. Scratch.
Hameur Boulshitza. Has already been shipped out on loan to Charlton. I like the way Woy thinks.

THNKS FR TH MMRS (Quoting Fallout Boy now? Don't make me kick your ass.-FF)
Alexei Smertin: Has been a good servant, but is getting on a bit and has been replaced by Andreassen and the return of Steven Davis. Should be allowed to go for another club.
Moritz Volz. Actually, I don't want him to go, but Hodgson doesn't rate him for some reason. May therefore be best off looking for employment elsewhere. I would suggest Ajax, as Marco Van Basten loves a fullback who does a bit of running (and, in Khalid Bouhlarouz' case, a bit of GBH).

Loaners
Eddie Johnson. With an army of strikers at the club, he might be best off getting to grips at a team like QPR for about half a year. On the other hand, many of our lads are a bit injury prone, and EJ is nicely physical if nothing else.

Welcome to the jungle:
One (or two) of Danny Gabbidon, Calum Davenport or James Collins. All decent centre backs, at least one of them surplus to requirements at West Ham. We're very VERY thin at the centre of our defence after the inexplicable dismissal of Boca, so a good experienced lad like Gabbidon would not be redundant.

Adam Johnson or Matthew Etherington. Can't get games at Boro and WHU respectively, and we can't get a left winger without immediately sending him out on loan. Maybe we should loan one ourselves, and these seem to be the best options with regard to availability and talent.

This is the End, Beautiful Friend
Check back next week for the Hull review.