The summer signing has found the going tough in East Yorkshire
Hull City face a decision over the future of Brandon Williams, with the ex-Manchester United defender struggling to make an impact at the MKM Stadium.
City offered Williams a lifeline in the summer when he penned a one-year deal in a bid to get his career back on track following a summer where he was handed a suspended jail sentence, but he has managed just five minutes of Championship action so far, and that came against Blackburn Rovers in August, with sporadic appearances on the bench.
Since then, the 25-year-old has been on a training schedule to try and get him up to speed and ready for the rigours of Championship football, two years after his last appearance for Ipswich Town.
That plan has included regular games in Conor Sellars’ Under-21s setup, but the defender has now picked up a calf problem and is set for a period on the sidelines in what will be another setback to the ex-United star.
“We must sit now and see after December,” Jakirovic told Hull Live. “We will sit down inside the club and decide what we will do with him, or he will stay here if he can play in the Championship, or we will find another solution. There is no third option. We need to make a decision together in the club.
“Is this enough for a championship, or maybe it’s not? We will see because he looks better now. I can admit that easier because he looks better now, but we will see if that’s enough for the Championship.
“If you look backwards, you see he didn’t play for two years. It’s a very big, very big absence from everything. It’s not about football issues; it’s about everything. I didn’t expect that he would need so much time to get into the training sessions, not in the games, the training sessions. You see, there are some qualities because he was on that level with United. We will see. We must make a decision for sure.”
Jakirovic hasn’t ruled out sending Williams out on loan to play games, though that is thought to be unlikely at this stage. The Croatian hasn’t ruled him moving away from the club permanently in January in a bid to play regularly.
Given the restrictions the Tigers are working under, and how close they are to the wind when it comes to FFP, having a player in their squad not involved is taking up valuable space that could be utilised elsewhere, something that’s under consideration.
“Everything that is good for him, because if you are just here, you have a training session without the games, without the minutes, and then it can be frustrating. Then it’s better maybe to change, to go on loan or somewhere to have your rhythm in the games.”
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