Hull City will again be active in the January transfer window, but it’s a period littered with danger, obstacles, and potential problems, which the Tigers must be guarded against.
The Tigers will no doubt sign a flurry of players and look to move on a bunch more as Ruben Selles looks to stamp his authority on the squad next month, and the importance of that cannot be underestimated.
Twelve months ago, the consensus was that the club needed to add carefully to give themselves a shot of getting into the Premier League. The marquee arrival of Fabio Carvalho grabbed worldwide headlines, while Anass Zaroury, Noah Ohio, Ivor Pandur and freebie Billy Sharp were among the other signings. The lack of an impact forward to replace Liam Delap cost them, and that error was repeated in the summer.
A year on, talk of Premier League football has long gone, and it’s all about survival now for City, who dropped back into the bottom three after their dramatic New Year’s Day loss to Middlesbrough, a shocking transformation from this time last year when City had just dropped out of the top six following their loss at Sheffield Wednesday.
If attracting players when you’re pushing for the Premier League is a little more straightforward, trying to convince players to move to East Yorkshire in the thick of a battle to avoid the drop to League One is fraught with problems. There will always be players who want to move, and many of them will care little about where they go as long as they’re getting paid, but City do not need those.
Selles will want hungry performers, ones who want to join City for the right reasons. To perhaps get their careers back on track, prove they can perform if they haven’t, or make the step up from the leagues below, which in turn brings its own challenges. We all know January is tough to do quality business within.
Acun Ilicali will back Selles with funds, but it has to be sensible and thought-out. City have spent a lot of money in the last couple of years, and they’ve wasted even more. January is dangerous, fees are inflated, and wages can be crippling. No doubt Ilicali will be wary of the threat of relegation and want to avoid it at all costs, but money cannot be thrown around like confetti without a plan.
City need to be strategic in their targets and sign players who want to be at the football club for the right reasons, and can come in and make a difference straight away. It’s no good signing a player who may be handy in a months’ time. They need players who can come in and hit the ground running, because their Championship existence relies upon it.
‘Sign a striker’ is something every fan will shout from the rooftops, but where from? That’s their challenge. Every team at every level in the land wants one, but they want one who can score goals. City have got a lot of players, but none of them score goals. The last thing they need is another player who can’t find the back of the net whilst saddling the club with more debt.
If results don’t improve quickly, January will have the feeling of panic buying on Black Friday, and that will do more harm than good, and they must guard against that. The summer was, at times, haphazard, and it cannot be again. Ilicali, Jared Dublin, and the rest of the group involved with signing players must operate with some common sense while making shrewd signings that can improve the squad now, and that’s not an easy task; it is, however, vitally important they get it right.