Not an over reaction at all Pete. We have had 5 poor seasons and probably heading for a sixth.

Im sick of Pearson insulting us saying we are at cap. Absolute rubbish. We are around 500K under.
As you say, it's a real concern where we are heading.

One game in and we are certainly in a crisis. Injuries are biting and we are going to lose at least one player to a big suspension.
I like many renewed my pass and bought merchandise and was very much looking forward to a fresh start with a new look squad but one game in and feel completely fed up and questioning as to whether i want to use time i could be spending with my family on a Saturday or Sunday by going and having to suffer similar to not just what was served up Thursday but what has been served up for the most part the last 5 seasons.

The fact Pearson was happy with the second half sums up the club at the moment.

Average league finish under Heatherington (including 2011 as Pearson didnt arrive til the Summer) = 6th with 1 Cup win, 1 defeat and a Grand Final.

Average league finish under Pearson = 7th, 2 Cup wins, 1 defeat

So you can argue that not a lot has changed in almost 25 years...but of course its the rate of recent decline thats the concern.

Hull City owner, but its a long shot that an overseas millionaire would want to invest in an English minority sport. Added clout to get ownership of the stadium and the land that surrounds it probably the only incentive there.

cheers,never heard of him,having said that i have no interest in city or football.

Or this season if he gets homesick perhaps. He's exactly what we need a playmaker who will guide us around the pitch. Hopefully after getting dumped by Rovers it'll be a wake up call and he sorts his fitness out.

So if he lets another club down and you'd still want him? We're desperate but not that desperate.

i personally think pearson is happy for hull to coast this season,we cant get relegated and he wants his debts reducing.i think pearson has been good for hull,but like players and coaches,owners can be here to long.we need fresh ideas and impetus at the top.

Agree, its a try and sort the debt out year. How long people keep paying to watch is the big question, particularly with the introduction of streaming. £6.99 to sit at home versus £34 to go will be interesting later in the season. Ive still not seen any detail on if the home team gets a share of the streaming money either.

We don't really know the financial situation other than random and sometimes contradictory snippets which seem to vary depending on whether passes are on sale or not.

As Pete alludes to I don't think AP wants dilution of control. Could this be because actually he's taking a decent salary from the club and wants to maintain that income? I've no idea but struggle to see why no one else wants to come on board at all and we've had anecdotal chat about investment being knocked back.

His reason to get out of the City wasn't really his fault though

If you speak to Sponsors and other stakeholders in RL, Clarky pleads poverty to everyone, so when AP comes out and says we are at cap, there is no way that can be true. Either we are running at cap and there is some real mis-management of salaries and contracts, or they are spinning a load of lies. Man for man with the top 6, our squad is far weaker so either Hoy, Carlos etc are on 150k plus, I just can't see it

Albert Kelly and Liam Watts both left under a cloud and we were very pleased to take them.

Desperate? after Thursday night I would say yes.

Club is going backwards and will only continue to go backs until further investment comes into the club, AP skint and attracting investors to the table will be a mammoth task. Most concerned I’ve been of this club in 20 years of watching.

investors wont invest if they cant have any say in the clubs day to day running, something Pearson won;t give up unless bought out completely!

catch 22 imo, Pearson is safe guarding the club from going bankrupt by cutting costs, it clearly shows on the pitch how poor we are atm, question is how long will fans shell out year on year on passes/merchandise to watch poor rugby?

Crikey Wilf, how long did it take you to compose that epic!! You must have spent all day and half the night putting that together!!, and that's coming from someone who can also go on a bit given half a chance!!

Agree with every one of the sentiments expressed, and with all the replies since.

I think we can split the situation into two halves really, on-field issues as one problem, with associated questions regarding how the club is run/financed forming the wider concern.

Taking our current shortcomings on the field first, it's obviously not going to be a quick fix, I think we've all worked that out already!
The club needs to take a medium/long term view to this. We need someone (T. Smith) to lay down a coherent plan for the club to pursue.
This will necessitate:
1: What style of rugby are we aiming for?
2: What type of team is required in order to achieve the style of rugby we are aiming for?
3: What type of player do we need who fit the profile for the team we are attempting to build?
4: Out of the current squad, who fits this profile, who doesn't, who needs to be moved on?
5: Identify compatible players when it comes to future recruitment, both in terms of first-choice quality and as strong reliable squad back-ups?

This needs to be set out by an experienced Director of rugby - Head of recruitment. I'm of the opinion that this is the role best suited for Tony Smith, and that it may be better for the club for him to assume these responsibilities (for the direction of travel) with a younger coach taking over the day to running of the first team squad.
Obviously, both men would need to be looking in the same direction, with a shared vision of where we are heading and how we aiming to get there, and be able to work in tandem with each aware of their own parameters.

However, all this ties into the wider issue of how the club is ran and, more pertinently, how it is financed.
As Mrs Barista pointed out earlier, none of us have any real idea of this aspect of operations. Everything we think we hear and know is really a combination of rumour and/or supposition with little in the way of knowledge.
Even so, it's difficult to get away from the feeling that a lack of funding and investment is currently severely hampering any ambition we have. As others have pointed out, the idea that, in 2024, we are spending at full salary cap having assembled this squad simply doesn't add up. If we are then, quite frankly, a raft of bottom-four players are earning top-four salaries, which can't be correct, surely!!

I agree with those posters who've opined that, due to the fact the threat of relegation has been removed, Adam is running the club at a reduced rate in order to clear some extensive debt. But this runs the risk of storing up problems further down the line. What the SL/RFL do one of their customary u-turns in two years time and suddenly put relegation back on the table, and we suddenly find ourselves facing the very real threat of 2nd division rugby, and quite possibly extinction as a club?

I do think the root of the current malaise is the lack of substantial investment (along with confusion about what type of team we would like to build). Like others on here, I've heard rumours that Pearson is something of a control freak and he has a habit of interfering, seemingly unable to appoint people and give them rein to do the job they've been employed for. It's an image which has tended to follow him around during his sporting involvement (Hull City, Leeds Utd), but unless any of us actually work for him, we've no way of knowing or confirming.

So, to sum up, we're in a hole, a big hole of our own making. There's no quick fix, it's not going to happen overnight that's for sure. Adam probably needs to acquire investment from somewhere, whether he would be prepared to relinquish some degree of control only he knows, and we need to ally that to a coherent vision designed to give us a team we can all be proud of once again. Failure to do so could result in a permanent dislocation between fanbase and club.

This is the worst I have felt about our immediate prospects since the late 90s David Lloyd era (the 2024 squad is the weakest we've seen since 1999 in my opinion). The club very nearly lost it's core fanbase then and It's becoming impossible to ignore/resist the gloom which is threatening to envelope the Faithful just 80 minutes into the new season. The passive acceptance of an inevitable derby defeat before it had even kicked off was a shocking indictment of how mired in the dark we all feel. For almost the first time in the 50 years I've been following the club, through so many ups and downs, I am truly struggling to detect even the merest hint of optimism for what lies ahead.

I'm not, by nature, a pessimist (nor simply a blind eyed optimist), but a less than 48 hours after a new season started It's difficult to see anything other than hardship and despondency ahead of us in the coming months.
Keep the faith is all we can do really, that and pray. Alternately do what my mate did on Thursday night and have so much to drink that I seriously don't think he was even aware of who we were playing (or even what sport was taking place) by the time the end finally arrived!!!