The Tigers go to South London this weekend in desperate need of a victory
Mohamed Belloumi is set to be in the City squad at Charlton on Saturday(Image: MI News/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
Hull City will be able to call upon Mo Belloumi for Saturday’s huge meeting with Charlton Athletic at The Valley, despite him being taken off at half-time on Tuesday night.
Belloumi was impressive in the first half at Leicester City, but was withdrawn at the interval with City leading 1-0 thanks to Liam Millar’s goal.
The Algerian winger had complained of tightness in his hamstring and was taken off as a precaution, but Sergej Jakirovic expects to have him available for a game he knows his side must win.
While the news on Belloumi is positive, it’s less so on Amir Hadziahmetovic. The Bosnian midfielder missed the trip to the King Power Stadium with a knee injury he sustained in the draw with Birmingham City last weekend.
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Regan Slater is pushing for a start after coming back from his ankle injury in the second half in the East Midlands, while Sergej Jakirovic hasn’t ruled out a start for Eliot Matazo more than 14 months on from suffering his ACL injury at Cardiff City.
“Everything is good, a little bit tired,” Jakirovic said of his squad. “It’s also the 3rd game in the last seven days, so we will see tomorrow, we will decide, maybe we will have a couple of changes, but they are already ready for the game.
“Mo is good. Mo is good, yes, I didn’t want to take a risk at half-time, because, immediately, I remember Sheffield Wednesday and Boxing Day, so it was a similar situation.
“How are you, Mo?’ ‘I’m fine, I can play’, and then choi choi, two months out, so it’s better to take a precaution.
“We have players as well, but he’s ready to go, so we will see if he will start or if he will come from the bench.
“Oh Amir, for him, he must go for surgery, but he will try to avoid surgery because you can go for surgery at any time. For now, he will try to avoid this. For us and for him, the (domestic) season is over, and he will try to fix this knee for the World Cup. This is the latest news, and he has full support from us.
“It’s not every year you are going to the World Cup, so like Yu (Hirakawa), he will try like this. If he’s not good, he will go for surgery, but if he goes to surgery, it’s a four-month recovery.
“He’s now in Sarajevo, and he’s in communication with Besiktas because he’s a Besiktas player, and also with the national team.”
On Matazo, the City boss is weighing up whether or not to risk starting the Belgian, despite such a long absence without Championship football.
“This is for me the biggest doubt,” he continued. “I see that he’s a very good footballer. He knows everything with the ball, but the Championship is not about the ball, it’s about fitness conditions. Maybe we will take a risk and put him in to play.
“I can say I don’t know him as a player because he played 14 months ago, just six appearances for Hull City before this injury, and then now in this moment of the season, we have to use him.
“It’s not easy for him as well, but I still think he can help us, so we will see how many minutes that will be.”
Given the importance of the game, the length of the journey and kick-off time at The Valley, City’s players set off on Thursday afternoon and will train in London on Friday.
“We will train tomorrow (Friday), and because it’s a very long journey, especially since it’s Friday, if we are stuck in traffic, it will be five or six hours, so I have decided to go today (Thursday) so that we have normal preparation because of the early kick-off.
“If it’s a game at 7:45pm, we will go tomorrow. Because it is 12:30, we can have two nights, you can sleep good and you can prepare for everything that we expect there.”
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