This is Hull and East Riding -- AT the high-stakes table of the Premier League, Hull City have pushed all their chips forward and taken an almighty gamble on survival this week. A £30m gamble, to be precise. Shelling out transfer fees that could eventually total £14.5m on Nikica Jelavic and Shane Long, and drawing up contracts that could amount to even more over the next three-and-a-half years, City have rolled the dice in a big, big way. Relegation, in fact, has suddenly become the unthinkable fate. There is little question the arrivals of Jelavic and Long has strengthened Steve Bruce's hand significantly. The two forwards have all the attributes to become the missing pieces of City's jigsaw and signing both makes Bruce the envy of every side beneath him in the table this month. Yet beneath the celebrations of a huge week in the transfer market are the subdued warnings of history. In Bruce's words, a "colossal" amount has been spent and neither player comes with guarantees of greatness. And therein lays the risk. As recently as November Assem Allam was publicly forecasting an approximate shortfall of £11m even after the increased Sky riches for this season. There are significant variables still to be accounted for, such as where City finish in the table, but there is little doubt this will be a campaign finished deep in the red. The arrival of Jelavic and Long has only guaranteed further short-term damage to the balance sheets. By the time the club's next accounts are filed to Companies House later this year, the debt owed to Allamhouse Ltd, the holding company owned by the Allam family, will be accelerating at pace towards £100m. A nine-figure sum. That is all very manageable should Assem Allam stick around as owner and chairman, but the battle-hardened supporters are no longer sitting quite so comfortably. Allam's threats to walk away "within 24 hours" if his proposed name change to Hull Tigers is rejected by the FA has somehow soured the brightest of weeks and invited a question mark over the long-term visions of Bruce. The City boss was unperturbed by another controversial week – perhaps he is getting used to the firefighting – so maybe we should all follow his composed lead. For a club at its historical zenith, however, these worries really ought to belong to someone else. City's immediate focus will be on commencing a key passage in their season positively at Norwich. After a trip to Carrow Road, the next five away games read like a who's who of the relegation fight. Games at Crystal Palace, Sunderland, Cardiff, West Ham and Stoke are all lined up before March is out, meaning it is on fields far away from East Yorkshire that this season could now be shaped. It looks a good time to be playing Norwich, though. Without a win in eight in all competitions, the heat is rising under manager Chris Hughton, who this week accepted his followers were currently being short-changed. Mutiny could be in the air if City strike the first blow. The Tigers, meanwhile, may be content just to avoid defeat. Just as they never went more than three games without a win during the whole of last term, this season they are yet to suffer three consecutive defeats. It is that consistency that holds the key to their continued prosperity. That said, with Jelavic and Long in their ranks, a long-awaited away win is not beyond Bruce's men. Only the club's second ever Premier League double beckons. *Prediction:* Norwich 1 Hull City 2
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