The Tigers boss believes his side have a real chance of success this season
Hull City head coach Sergej Jakirovic admits he cannot wait for the Tigers’ return to action later this month, as he prepares to welcome back a host of influential players.
It’s expected that both Oli McBurnie and John Lundstram will return soon after the international break concludes, with Liam Millar due back at the beginning of December, or perhaps sooner if he continues to make good progress in his recovery from a hamstring strain.
Eliot Matazo is nearing a return to training after his ACL injury and could well feature on the other side of Christmas, which will be a major boost for the Belgian midfielder who hasn’t played for City since the defeat at Cardiff City early in the New Year.
Getting McBurnie back after missing the last five games will be crucial, and it’s hoped he could be back for the trip to QPR, or shortly after that, with City going into that game sitting pretty in fifth place.
Crossing fingers that there are no more major injuries in the next couple of weeks, Jakirovic could, for the first time, have his strongest squad yet available to him for a frantic spell of games leading into the festive period.
And unsurprisingly, that has the Croatian head coach filled with excitement, and what has quickly become one of his favourite words in the English language, ‘buzzing’.
“I can say just this time that I’m buzzing,” he said with a big grin. “Yes, because if everything is OK, I think, beginning of December, or till Millwall, December 13th, we will have a full squad if everything is OK for sure, but we cannot know that because it’s a lot of games, so we’ll see. I hope we will all be together, and then it will be very interesting.”
Saturday’s 3-2 win over Portsmouth saw the return to the bench of Mo Belloumi after an eight-game absence, and though he didn’t get on the pitch, having him back was a major boost.
The Tigers’ chief remains bullish about his side’s chances with 31 games of the season still left to play, and believes that they’re firmly in with a shot of clinching a top-six berth based on their impressive start.
“We can fight for the top six because we have shown until now that we can fight, that we can play against every team in the league,” the Croatian said. “We have our qualities after all these problems that we have had till now with the transfer period and everything. I think that we have a good team and good quality.
“They showed every weekend, every game that we can play an equal game. No matter home or away, I think it’s completely different from last season because now we have confidence.
“OK, some games you also survive, but this is also your quality and your character that you are not surrendering, and you are able to change, in the second half, your performance. This is also quality.”
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