Pre-season is supposed to provide the backbone of a club’s campaign, with preparations on and off the pitch aimed at giving the players the best chance of success over the next 46 games.

Unfortunately for Hull City, it’s the second successive summer where they head off to Turkey with some significant degree of uncertainty and major worries about their prospects going into the new season.

Twelve months ago, Tim Walter trudged off to Riva with a skeleton squad largely made up of academy players. His frustration was apparent throughout. Those preparations for the season were less than ideal and ensured the Tigers started the season badly. Despite a three-game winning streak, things continued to go downhill with the German ultimately losing his job.

Their final day survival at Portsmouth was fortunate, but their predicament couldn’t have come as a surprise given the shambolic nature of last summer. Essentially, City were set up to fail and staying in the league was the luckiest of lucky escapes.

A year on, Sergej Jakirovic has arrived, and while he will take a stronger squad to Istanbul than Walter did, the ongoing uncertainty surrounding the club’s finances and transfer restrictions imposed on them by the EFL hangs over them like a dark winter cloud.

He’s also managed something Walter couldn’t in any of his seven pre-season games, and that’s claiming a victory. That came on Saturday when Tyrell Sellars-Fleming netted the only goal to see off Grimsby Town at the club’s training ground.

The club hopes the EFL’s appeal board will scrap the three transfer fee restrictions imposed on them earlier this month or, at the very least, reduce them. While that may or may not happen, it does mean City are hamstrung right now and in a state of limbo.

Players are not able to arrive until the outcome of their appeal is known, which, for a team that escaped relegation on goal difference, is not a good place to be.

Yes, Liam Millar and Mohamed Belloumi are close to returning, and fans will hope that Jakirovic can inspire goals from the league’s most impotent attack last term, but that is not assured. The Bosnian needs help in the transfer market, and that cannot yet arrive, so he must find a way of getting the best from what he’s got in the dressing room.

There remains a host of players heading out on the flight from Humberside Airport on Sunday morning who may not be City players for much longer. While that is not unusual at this stage of the summer transfer window, trips like this are crucial for team bonding.

After their humiliating relegation from the Championship in the COVID-19-impacted 2019/2020 campaign, Grant McCann hailed the summer trip to Scotland as absolutely pivotal to their League One title win. The spirit created on that trip, the bonding, and the relationships built gave the dressing room the key ingredients needed throughout that season.

That’s one of the key facets of pre-season training camps, and it’s therefore vital Jakirovic can foster a similar mentality from the players at his disposal.

They are not at fault for what’s going on off the pitch, even if it will impact them on it. All they can do is get their heads down and control what they can control, as the cliche goes. If help is forthcoming from outside, then great; if not, then they must batten down the hatches and operate with some kind of siege mentality.

By the time City return to the UK next Sunday to kickstart their domestic programme of games, they’ll hope to have clarity on their transfer situation and know where they stand, but it’s hard to escape the fact the Tigers are once again heading into their most important period with two arms tied behind their back.

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