Hull City boosted on eve of Coventry City clash as Ruben Selles looks to the future

Hull City have been boosted by the return of central defender Alfie Jones for Saturday’s trip to Coventry City after the experienced ace recovered from injury.

After a run of 44 straight games, Jones has missed the last two with a hamstring complaint but returned to training ahead of the trip to the Midlands and will be in the squad at the CBS Arena, and could yet return to Ruben Selles’ first starting XI away from home as he looks to back up his opening draw with Watford by earning a first win as City head coach.

Xavier Simons remains unavailable but could come back into contention when City host Swansea City at the MKM Stadium, while Carl Rushworth is making good progress and could be back on the training pitch before the end of the month and available early in the New Year.

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"Alfie is back, so he has been training in the last couple of days," a buoyant Selles told Hull Live just before the squad boarded their coach for the trip to the Midlands. "So then it's my decision which position he will occupy tomorrow in the team if he will be in the line-up or in the squad. Xavi will still need to wait some days, but we think he can be available during the next week."

Reflecting on a promising point against the play-off-chasing Hornets, Selles has enjoyed another couple of days on the training pitch, and a chance to get his methods across to the players.

"It has been important, obviously, the day after the game, the players that played were in the recovery," he explained. "We have some small talks, but we wanted them to have a little bit of freshness today. The players that were not in the team trained really hard yesterday. They did a very good job in training, and today we put everyone together. Then, we prepared for the game, so we're ready to go."

Watching the Watford game back, Selles, along with his coaching staff, believes there were plenty of positives to take, but plenty to work on, and that's something they've been looking to pick up on in training, and team meetings, over the past few hours.

"What we usually do after the game, during the next hours - and it can be before we sleep or after - we take the time to watch it individually, and then we put the ideas together. I think the game expressed a lot of ideas of what we want from the team, and obviously, we knew that not everything was perfect; it's some of the points that we will try to improve for the next game, but we will try to coach this in the long term, we cannot expect that after a couple of days, everything will be perfect, but it was a good expression.

"I think it's always important, especially in the conditions that we came in with that short period, the way that you deliver the information and the way that the people - because it's not only about myself or the technical staff delivering the information - take the information on board. I think we found a group that was ready to go and get new ideas. Also, the technical staff worked really hard to simplify those ideas into the game.

"I was very pleased with the effort, and I know it was a big effort from everyone trying to make things happen, and hopefully we can keep that spirit."

Selles said after the game that he and the players were frustrated with the ease at which Watford were allowed to attack and score their equaliser, two minutes from time, and barely five after Chris Bedia looked like he had scored the winner for the hosts. While he says he will not deviate from his attacking principles to keep the foot down on the accelerator and not sit back to try and hold what he's got, there does have to be a greater understanding from his players of how to deal with certain moments.

"In those moments, you need to learn how to compete together," he continued. "That is the most important thing, and then there is how to manage the game. We are never going to be that team that, after scoring (to lead) one-nil, is going to change our way of doing things and our actions. If you analyse the action (the away goal), it is an action that we press. We didn't finish the press, but we pressed high; they broke the pressure, we followed the player, and then the action ended up in our box. If we stay low, it will come from a second action or whatever it is.

"What we need to learn now and learn together is how to cope with those moments in the games. When we are leading and drawing, how can we keep ourselves in the mode of 'OK, we know what is coming; this is what we are doing?'

"Those moments of the game, sometimes you can talk about it, but you need to experience it, and then you can prepare for the next moment when it happens to know what to do, and that's what we have been doing in the last couple of days. Those tiny little things are the things that you need to change. In that action, we need to stop the action before, but we still need to keep the pressure on the ball, and the feeling will come, and the action will come, and the feeling will come, and the next time we are in that situation, we know as a team how to react."

City will come up against another side in transition in the Sky Blues, who have drawn one, won one and lost one since Frank Lampard replaced Mark Robins last month, and Selles, who is a stickler for his analysis, admits it's tough to know exactly what to expect, as it will be Coventry trying to assess City.

"I know the team. Mark (Robins) has been there for a long period, changing the culture of the club, promoting it, and making an impact on the Championship.

"They decided to change the manager, and they are now with Frank (Lampard). We faced Frank in the Premier League (with Southampton) a couple of seasons ago with his Everton team. He's a proper manager. The team is going to be ready. It's going to be a little bit different than what they were before. We can expect not only the way that they played the last couple of games but also a little evolution because it's still too early to determine completely their style. We think by knowing him from before, the footage, and the players that are available, we can have a couple of things to adapt our style to and be successful tomorrow."

City will arrive at the CBS Arena without a win in their 12 previous games, but did at least halt the run of six straight defeats in midweek, though Selles is keen to not dwell on what's happened before, and instead use it as platform to get better.

"What I must say is that we will always try not to make any narrative about that. So it's six, 12 - I will not be here if it's 12, but whatever happened in the past, that's a narrative. What we need to be focused on is the next game, so we need to build from what we were on Wednesday, adjust the things for the team that we have in front and then have a game plan that will allow us to be successful and then things happen in football we know that, but as much as we can reduce those margins, that is what we are looking for.

"That's what we are working for. What we're going to try to do is just to take one game at a time. The past will only support us into a platform to make better things, and the future we don't know, so for us, it's tomorrow. It doesn't change anything if we draw or won in the last game. We are going to attack that game and we will be fully focused on that one."