Few could argue that Ruben Selles has lifted the mood around Hull City, both in the dressing room and within the non-playing staff, while supporters have started to believe again.
In the Championship, City have recovered from being beaten every week to being ultra-competitive and taking points off the league leaders while getting the feeling of winning games back after three months, restoring belief that City can avoid what would be a damaging relegation to League One.
What Selles’ side have been unable to do is build any kind of momentum from game to game, and that was apparent once again on Sunday afternoon when they were dumped out of the FA Cup by Grant McCann and his Doncaster Rovers.
Momentum was in the air after the manner of City’s stirring comeback against Leeds United, fighting from 3-1 down to snatch a 3-3 draw – everybody was buzzing. Although it wasn’t a victory, it was a big point and the manner of it felt like one.
Beating Doncaster was never going to be season-defining, of course. It wasn’t, but it was a chance to just continue that little bit of momentum from the Leeds’ game, create a bit of excitement and win a football match, especially at the MKM Stadium. After all, including that sole friendly win out in Turkey back in October, City have won six times since April 24 last year.
Fans are understandably frustrated, and so was Selles after the game, having spoken before it about the need to continue the momentum built up after the Leeds clash, instead, there was a sense of anger again at another season without any cup success.
“Absolutely, we want to build from that, and yes, we didn’t,” he told Hull Live after Sunday’s cup exit. “Now we need to fight even harder to win the next game and to go to Millwall and be competitive.”
And that is now the key for City. After good results previously under Selles; against Watford, Swansea City and Blackburn Rovers, the Tigers have been unable to back up good results with more good results and get themselves on a run which would take them up and away from the danger zone.
Time is running out. There’s only 20 games of the season left and while that may seem like a lot, they’ll go in no time and before you know it, we’ll be into the ten-game run-in. Every point is crucial for City, and that has to be the mentality going to Millwall this weekend, facing a manager in Alex Neil who came very, very close to getting the job Selles has now. Given the impressive amount of work he did for his City interview, there won’t be much he won’t know about the Tigers.