Jimmy Bullard!
Crumbs. We've just bought Jimmy Bullard. A bonafide, top of the range creative midfielder with many an admirer, a killer set-piece delivery and visionary skills to make Specsavers envious.
Bullard has cost £5m from Fulham, for whom he played gloriously on the opening day of the season at the KC, and it's already tempting to say he'll be worth every penny. Beyond the obvious shot in the arm for the squad and the city, it proves beyond any reasonable doubt that the Tigers mean business; that Paul Duffen and Phil Brown are determined to pull off transfer coups which will, once and for all, expose their enormous ambition for the club.
Symbolically, a previous record arrival, Lawrie Dudfield, also was subject to a transfer window deal this week. He has joined non-league Chelmsford City, having bummed around at Northampton Town (twice), Southend United, Boston United and Notts County, plus Irish club football, since he left the KC. That Brian Little paid £250,000 for him as a bright, youthful starlet-in-the-making nigh on a decade ago is a signal of a) how far we've come in both finance and reputation, and b) how far he has declined since failing to live up to his price tag.
And, as if getting Bullard wasn't enough, Brown has managed to alleviate the whining noises emanating from Kamil Zayatte's agent by securing the Guinean defender on a full-time deal for £2.5m. This eases the immediate need to acquire another central defender substantially.
And from the superstar buys to the reward of our most loyal servants - Andy Dawson, now 30, decent and respectable - and, of course, with appearances in all four divisions under his belt - has been given a new three-year deal. In many ways, that's the most heartwarming bit of business we've concluded today.
Bullard, although not cup-tied, is expected to sit out the Millwall game this weekend and be paraded around the KC Stadium beforehand. A debut at his boyhood club, West Ham United, beckons on Wednesday night instead. What a week it's going to be, and what a day it has already been for Hull City.
.jpg)
