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Hull City Fan View: Transfer window crucial for the Tigers
‘Defensive errors cost battling Hull City once again’ – the headline of my last Hull City fan view blog. Half of me just felt like copy and pasting exactly the same article for this week’s blog, simply replacing the word ‘Everton’ with ‘West Brom’. However, upon reflection, last week’s words are not strong enough to describe City’s embarrassing defensive collapse at the Hawthorns yesterday. This January transfer window is looking more important for the club by the day.
As a fan of a traditionally similar-sized club, it pains me to admit that I am very jealous of West Brom. In the last 12 months the club has been bought by a Chinese investment group, spent millions on quality players such as Nacer Chadli and Matt Phillips and find themselves in an impressive 8th position in the Premier League. Oh, how it could have all been so different for Hull City…
However, saying all of that, the first half yesterday saw Hull City look much the stronger side – giving the mere 800 travelling City fans another glimpse of, what turned out to be false, hope. Once again, Mike Phelan’s men took the game to their opposition from the very first minute and as in the Everton game just three days before, took the lead early on through top goal-scorer Robert Snodgrass’ seventh league goal of the campaign. We cannot afford to lose him this month.
However, in classic ‘Typical City’ fashion the lead didn’t last. Just four minutes into the second half West Brom equalized after shambolic marking across City’s backline from a Baggies’ corner gave Chris Brunt a free header at the back post. It was all downhill after this.
More calamitous Hull City defending was to follow 15 minutes later when Northern Irish international Gareth McAuley powered home from close range after yet another corner was poorly defended by the Tigers. Despite seemingly being cleared off the line by Sam Clucas, the ball was deemed over the line by goal-line technology. Referee Mark Clattenburg awarded the goal, adding to Hull City’s misery.
The Tigers’ last hopes of picking up a first point on the road since September were quickly extinguished by the 73rd minute when Scottish International James Morrison took advantage of yet more woeful defending to turn home from ten yards out. By this point the ‘Typical City’, ‘Phelan Out’ and the fairly amusing, if not very unfair, ‘BetterThanMarshall’ hashtags began flowing on social media. Yet another miserable day for Mike Phelan and his side.
However, in very uncharacteristic fashion and in belated festive spirit, I have decided to try and be positive. Here goes. As I said in my last blog, the bottom of the Premier League table is incredibly tight this season. Currently, Swansea, Sunderland, and Hull City are looking the most likely to be playing in the Championship next season, however, when there is only a 12 point gap between 10th and 20th position, 11 sides could still be realistically pulled into the relegation battle this season.
As always, this makes the January transfer window vitally important for all those concerned, and while it is expected Mike Phelan will be given little to no money to bring permanent signings into his squad, keeping hold of a number of star players – notably Snodgrass, Maguire, Dawson and Hernandez – as well as using the loan market to its full effect could give The Tigers’ the slightest glimmer of hope of Premier League survival.
So far, the names being linked with the club have been surprisingly exciting, however, the credibility of tabloid reporting at this time of the year is, of course, always up for debate. With Moses Odubajo still out with his long-term knee injury, and Ahmed Elmohamady set for the African Cup of nations this month, a full-back is surely top of Phelan’s want list. The ‘head-coach’ has let slip that his preferred move to fill this position is Arsenal’s 24-year-old right-back Carl Jenkinson, however, while Arsenal have made it clean a loan move for the England international is on the cards, the Tigers supposedly face competition from several other Premier League outfits.
While Jenkinson would certainly be a solid loan signing for the Tigers this January, the Hull City faithful have been more excited by rumours of a loan move for former Champions League Winner Samuel Eto’o. The four-time African Footballer of the Year, who is currently under contract at Turkish club Antalyaspor, is set for a loan move back to the Premier League this January and, even at the age of 35, could surely still do a job for this struggling Hull City team. If we are set to go down, I quite like the idea of going down in style with Hull City starting Samuel Eto’o upfront – something I could have only dreamt of 16 years ago when attending my first Hull City match against Halifax Town in the old Third Division. Stranger things have happened.