Hull City have been handed a major boost with the news that a host of their injury doubts will be available for Saturday’s trip to Millwall.
Steven Alzate, Gustavo Puerta, Ryan Longman and Fin Burns will all be available, while Matty Jacob will be assessed after his hip problem.
City had doubts about Alzate, Puerta,and Burns after the trio picked up issues in last Sunday’s FA Cup defeat on penalties to Doncaster Rovers, while Longman and Jacob were left out altogether following groin and hip issues, respectively.
Though the Tigers will be without long-term absentees Kasey Palmer, Charlie Hughes, Dogukan Sinik, Liam Millar and Mohamed Belloumi, plus the suspended Oscar Zambrano, having those players available is a welcome shot in the arm for Ruben Selles ahead of a busy three-game week which also sees City host QPR on Tuesday night before facing Sheffield United at Bramall Lane next Friday night.
Selles’ squad will also be further boosted by the arrivals of Matt Crooks and Joe Gelhardt. Incoming arrival Nordin Amrabat is expected to be involved, while he faces a big decision in goal over whether to play Ivor Pandur or hand Carl Rushworth a league debut after he made his long-awaited Tigers bow in the FA Cup.
“I have a list here with me because I needed to be prepared for it,” Selles joked when asked for an injury update by Hull Live.
“Gustavo is fine. It was just a knock at the end (of the game against Rovers). Steven, the back spasm has gone, and he has been training well during the week. Finley is OK; there has been nothing reported after (his issue in the FA Cup), so he is ready to go.
“(Ryan) Longman is back selectable for me and Matty Jacob, tomorrow he needs to make the last training, and then we will decide after that.
“Abdus is not going to be selectable. He has something in his knee that is going to take him some weeks. We still need to identify how long; if it’s going to be short-term because of pain management or if it’s going to be a little bit longer.
“It’s apparently related to his meniscus in one of the knees. It was a contact (injury) he got in a training session, and it appeared the day after. He’s been unlucky; he was sick after he played. He was sick before one of the games, and then he got that knock before one of the games. Let’s see how long he’s out.”
Selles inherited a desperate injury situation and things haven’t really improved for the boss, who is consistently unable to name his strongest side.
“Sometimes it happens,” he said philosophically. “Things like Steven (Alzate) and Gus (Puerta) are a little bit from the game, as we say. The pitch didn’t help us, and I think it’s also related to those things, as well as the extra level of fatigue.
“It’s a little bit of accumulation. We talk about it with a new manager, especially the way that we want to play. You need six or seven weeks (for the new training schedule to take effect). You need to really manage the load and look after them.
“Remember, the game with the highest outputs in the season in terms of physicality was the Leeds game, which was the fourth game after 10 days.
“So the group is ready, but sometimes you pick a little bit of injuries, and the way that we train, we train aggressively because we want to play aggressively. Sometimes that’s the price that you need to pay in order to be able to compete.”
Selles also has a big decision to make in between the posts this weekend after handing a long-awaited debut to Carl Rushworth in the FA Cup. Ivor Pandur has played every minute of City’s league campaign. And the City head coach says he has already made the decision of who will start at The Den.
“Well, I’ve already made my decision, but I always try to be sensible with those things,” he confessed. “I did in the past (at Reading and Southampton). I would stay with the goalkeeper. I did change the goalkeeper, and when I needed to analyse this kind of situation, I tried to have all the arguments with me to have solid answers, and then at the end of the day, I needed to make a decision.
“I have already made my decision in my mind, and then we will see it on Saturday.”