Sergej Jakirovic admits Hull City’s injury situation is incredible as he faces starting the new season without a host of first-team players and new signings, and says the timing is not ideal.
Last season was blighted by injuries to his key players, with Jakirovic never once able to name a fully fit squad, let alone a settled starting line-up, and those problems haven’t gone away over the summer.
Star defender Charlie Hughes hasn’t kicked a ball since the first week of pre-season as the club continue to investigate the issues he’s been having since undergoing double hernia surgery in the summer. Hughes went to see a specialist in Dublin this week for another consultation and there are genuine concerns about when he will return.
Jack Butland has undergone surgery on the arm injury he picked up in training before the game against Eintracht Frankfurt, while fellow new signings Joe Gelhardt, Hidemasa Morita and Oscar Zambrano are also unavailable.
Morita could play next week in the Carabao Cup tie at Stoke City, but will not feature this weekend when the Tigers kick off their Premier League season against Manchester United. City are also hamstrung by a second ACL injury suffered by Eliot Matazo, who will miss the majority of the season.
Darko Gyabi and Matty Jacob are also sidelined, while during pre-season, John Egan, Lewie Coyle, Cody Drameh and Mo Belloumi have all been nursing problems at different points in the past few weeks.
“Yes, it’s very incredible,” the Croatian boss told Hull Live. “Some of these injuries are old problems from last season, and some of them are new, of course.
“It’s football, injuries, it’s normal things for us. It’s just that the timing of these injuries is not good. Some injuries that we have now are old problems from last season, so they’re just repeating. What can we do?”
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Saturday’s draw with Nice ended the Tigers’ pre-season campaign, and this week has been about preparing for Saturday’s big curtain raiser against United.
Jakirovic still wants more rhythm from his side and is keen to fine-tune that during the week before the serious stuff gets underway, and valuable points are up for grabs.
“Thank God (pre-season is done), everything is OK,” the City chief continued. “We did everything that we planned and were careful about it, and now it’s done, there’s seven days to go (from Saturday to Saturday). We have a lot of work to do still. We are not in the right rhythm, but I hope these seven days, especially with these new players (we will find it), we will try to maybe add them in the first 11, but we will see next week.”
Elliot Stroud, Nobel Mendy, Lucas Herrington and Lucas Gourna-Douath all made their debuts against Nice, and the City boss says he was pleased with what he saw, though reiterated that they will need time.
“They are good players, you can see that, but they need some time for adaptation, to be together with the group and with the boys to know each other better. There is a lot of effort, and maybe Jens (Hjerto-Dahl) could have scored at least one, but everything is OK, and with time, they will be better and better.
“Everything that I saw, what I watched, and they are good players, and I hope their adaptation will be short because we need them,” he continued before speaking about his hopes for Gourna-Douath.
“In the earlier stage of his career, he showed great potential, but he got a little bit stuck somewhere, I don’t know where, but we brought him here, and we will try to improve him, to develop him, and I hope he will be a good choice in the midfield.”
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