For many Hull City fans, finishing 17th in the Premier League this season will be viewed as something of a success, and to a degree, you can understand that.
After a decade away, a spell in League One and a final-day survival act, City stunned the football world by securing promotion via the Championship play-off final at Wembley a month ago.
Just being back in the Premier League would have been unthinkable to many associated with the MKM Stadium club a few months ago, but that is now their reality.
Joining the Tigers in the top flight will be champions Coventry City and Ipswich Town. The latter are back after one season in the Championship, having won promotion a couple of seasons ago and have just announced Gary O’Neil as successor to Kieran McKenna.
Chief executive at Portman Road, Mark Ashton, has urged the Tractor Boys to aim higher than 17th, and his comments should resonate with those involved with the Tigers.
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“This is the biggest and best league in the world. We’re one of the top 20 clubs in this country now,” Ashton told the EADT. “I want us to go into this season full of hope and dreams and excitement.
“The last time we were up, we’d been outside the top flight for over two decades. We’d only had one season in the Championship. The problem that you’ve got with that is you can’t build infrastructure and processes quickly enough. I think ultimately that caught up with us. This time, recruitment, performance and data are all more robust. Our incredible new training ground will be world-class and is a game-changer for us. Infrastructure-wise, we’re in a much better place.
“It’s the biggest and best league in the world, and it will be tough again. But I think our mentality going into this season, as a club, is we can’t just be happy to be here.
“We can’t go in with a mentality that fourth from bottom would be success. If you start with that, I think it’s defeatist. I think we’ve got to be more optimistic than that.
“We’ve got to challenge ourselves more than that. We’ve got to probably be a bit braver this time – whether it’s in recruitment, whether it’s in whatever we do around the club – because we want to stay.
“That is not going to be easy, and it’s going to take everyone putting a real shift in together, but I just want us to go into this season with real optimism, real pride in who we are.
“I had a conversation with the Premier League at a point last time where I actually said, ‘Look, I don’t want us to feel like ‘little Ipswich’. I think we did at times, whether it was with things like VAR – everyone knows how I feel about that – or whatever.
“I don’t want us going into this season as ‘little Ipswich’. I want us to go into it being big, proud, really excited and brave about the season ahead. It’s going to be tough, but this is a very special club with a very special fan base.”
While City don’t have the benefit of being in the top flight as recently as the Tractor Boys, nor do they have the stream of income that Town do, the progress they have made on and off the pitch is an example of what can be achieved and should serve as an incentive.
City must make the most of the incredible opportunity they’ve given themselves, but they can afford to be more bullish than simply accepting 17th for starters.
They’re now one of the top 20 clubs in the country, as Ashton points out. City are a club with a proud history and they deserve to be in the Premier League. There should be no ‘little old Hull City‘ attitude; they should puff out their chests and face the upcoming challenge head-on.
Strive for higher as they did last season, and you just never know where that may take you.
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