Ex-Hull City star Curtis Davies names his two star men for vacant manager role

Legendary former Hull City defender Curtis Davies admits Tigers fans can allow themselves to dream about their next managerial appointment after Tim Walter was given his marching orders on Wednesday after the 2-0 defeat to Sheffield Wednesday the night before.

Ex-Coventry City boss Mark Robins is near the top of the bookmakers' list of potential replacements for Walter, while Steve Cooper, like Robins, would be a hugely popular choice amongst supporters for his exploits in guiding Nottingham Forest from the foot of the Championship to the Premier League in the space of a few months.

Cooper was spoken to during the summer but made it clear that he wanted a Premier League job, and that eventually came, but it ended last week when the Foxes sacked him after 12 games, and Davies believes either of those would make an excellent appointment, if Acun Ilicali could pull it off.

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"Mark Robins, first and foremost, is a fantastic manager. He took Coventry through the leagues and we waxed lyrical about him a few weeks ago when he was sacked by Coventry. If it were to be Cooper, who has just been taken out of Leicester City, the job he did at Nottingham Forest from the relegation zone to the Premier League, so I think Hull City fans maybe will dream but I think they'll need somebody to come in and stabilise the club back in and around it and make sure they're safe this year."

On the subject of Walter's demise, Davies again reiterated his belief that the players were not buying in the system, based on what he saw both in games, and on his visit to the club's training ground earlier this season.

"It just hasn't happened," Davies told Sky Sports. "It hasn't happened (the new style of football), that's the whole point. The owner said he wanted more exciting football and he felt Tim Walter could bring that. If you look at the results, it was maybe exciting for the other teams, but not for Hull City fans.

"Even when I went to the training ground and I did a feature there, I didn't know what they wanted to do. I'm stood there on the side of the pitch and I couldn't work out how they wanted to play and the structure of the team. It was evident from when we've watched them, quite often, it seems the players didn't buy into it either."