City’s impressive start to the season continues to be impacted with the loss of key players
Hull City will be without Liam Millar until the back end of next month after the winger suffered a hamstring problem in the draw with Charlton Athletic last weekend.
Millar, who made his comeback after 11 months out with an ACL injury against former club Preston late last month, played just 13 minutes against another of his old clubs on Saturday, before succumbing to the injury to leave City boss Sergej Jakirovic missing yet another influential performer.
It’s expected that the Canadian wingman will miss at least four weeks due to an issue common in players recovering from ACL surgery, but could return before the end of November.
Elsewhere, Matt Crooks is set to continue playing despite suffering from a problem in his chest picked up in the win over Leicester City last midweek.
It was intially thought Crooks would require surgery but it’s likely he will be able to continue playing, for the time being at least which means he will be available for Saturday’s trip to Norwich City, along with Tuesday’s meeting with Derby County at Pride Park and next Saturday’s visit of Portsmouth to the MKM Stadium in the final outing before the international break.
After missing last Saturday’s stalemate with the Addicks with a back issue, David Akintola is set to be involved in the squad that travels to Carrow Road on Friday afternoon, but Akin Famewo won’t be having picked up another hamstring problem, though it’s hoped he will be fit for Derby.
Striker Oli McBurnie remains sidelined with his calf problem, though he could yet return next week, and the game will come too soon for both Mo Belloumi and John Lundstram, but Amir Hadziahmetovic is fine after suffering a slight bang to the head last weekend, which forced him to miss training in the early part of the week. Both Kasey Palmer and Eliot Matazo remain the long-term absentees for the Tigers.
Saturday’s squad will also include a host of academy players, with the Tigers missing so many first-team men.
“We recovered good this week,” Jakirovic told Hull Live. “We used it to get freshness, especially with three games in the next seven days. We have 14 senior players, so we are in the same position, I think, like Norwich, because they also have a lot of injured players.
“We will prepare something for Saturday. I think that we are ready, but we have problems because we don’t have both wingers (Millar and Belloumi), we don’t have Oli and Lunny (Lundstram) is still out. We have some options that we cannot use, but OK, we will see on Saturday.
“It’s frustrating, of course, first of all for him (Millar), but in the end for us as well as a group. We’re looking forward and taking it day by day, week by week, and maybe he will return after five weeks.
“We’ll see because he’s very hardworking, and I think, the end of November, beginning of December, he will be available.”
Jakirovic says having the international break is a big help, with Belloumi and Lundstram expected back after that and in time for the trip to QPR on November 22. Belloumi had been expected to return against Pompey, but he suffered a setback in his recovery.
“This is a big advantage for us, and this is the last one (in 2025). After this international break, we are playing until March without any, and especially in this period, from November 22nd to January 4th, it’s 11 games. I hope that we will all be together after the international break, except Liam.”
On Crooks, Jakirovic says surgery has been postponed, and it will be down to the player himself to decide what happens in the coming months.
“He’s good, he trained well normally, so he doesn’t need to go in for surgery right now, but it’s his decision,” the Croatian explained.
“It’s always really a player decision, and I will respect that, but what we have spoken about right now is that he will postpone everything.”
Leading striker McBurnie remains away from full training and working with the medical staff, and the coach is not overly optimistic about his potential of being involved next week, but his situation will continue to be assessed daily.
“Oli is still out, and he will not play this game for sure. We will see next week, but I’m not so optimistic about Oli (featuring against Derby and Pompey).”
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