Rather have kept washbrook

The thing is though lots of people were expecting Pearson to wave the cheque book and sign some real quality after his initial statements when he took over ala warrington when in fact it looks more like we're raiding the piggy bank. Gentles coaching may make a massive diffeence this year or maybe it wont, who knows, but squad wise it just looks like weve gone sideways. My optimism has been well and truly nuked!

Indeed and/or Burnett if you are just looking for cover.

Dowes is a better prop than Aspinwall is a second row, and Hull are short of a prop imho.

If there is a lack of quality players out there and if we had little room to manouvre within the cap, AP should have chosen his words much more carefully when he talked about quality additions to the squad and about exciting the fans.

The Aspinwall and Martin signings, IMO, are far from "exciting" and they're certainly not "quality additions".

I also agree with Seb that our squad has gone sideways and any improvement now can only come from Gentle himself.

My optimism, in the space of two months, has gone through the ceiling, only to then fall back down onto the floor in a heap.

I think Aspinwall will surprise fans, not anywhere near as bad as people think.

I agree and its only a one year deal is it not?? So there could be something in the pipeline for the 2013 season...who knows???

I don't think anyone is saying that him or Tony Martin are bad Paul. They're just very average signings that do not come close to what most fans were hoping for.

Just another underwhelming signing.

Where does the salary cap come from for a 2013 signing, whether it's in the pipeline or not?

I can't imagine that the salaries of Martin + Aspinwall are going to get us a marquee signing for 2013. The rest of our squad will be more or less in place for the 2013 season. If Moa or O'Meley leave, their replacements will probably cost just as much anyway.

The same is true for Tony Martin.

There's just a disconnect between the sensible strategy and ambitious rhetoric. Which is strange, because Pearson seems a pretty shrewd guy.

I think you could be right.

AP unfortunately did not seem to know we have such a thing as the salary cap in RL (i may be wrong) but when he spoke about the way in the past FC signing haven't been of a good standard, so some of us myself included got a bit carried away thinking of the players we may sign.

I mean I thought Chris Bridge and JJB was going to sign and I felt underwhelmed.

I've alway's being sceptical of the reason why AP bought FC but's that's old ground.

That's exactly where the problem lies.

For, as you say, a very shrewd guy, he's scored a bit of an own goal with the disparity between his rhetoric and his actual signings.

Who is to say we are at the cap now?
We may have weighted certain players contracts to pay more in year 2 or 3 which is restricting who we can sign this season and may be another reason we have signed a couple of players on 1 year deals only.

Agree with you Paul, just read his interview on the club website and he really is fired up and determined to do well here.Good to see that he is moving over to Hull to live too.

you seriously need to re-define your meaning of bad
on the martin signing you said it was disgusting and would make us weaker and you will not buy a season pass,god knows how you would react if you thought they were bad