Hull City head coach Sergej Jakirovic remains positive that more new faces will be in his squad to face Nice on Saturday in the Tigers’ final pre-season friendly.
The Tigers boss expects to welcome Mohamed Ali-Cho, Nobel Mendy, Leon Bailey and Lucas Herrington, in addition to Elliot Stroud, who saw his move to the MKM Stadium confirmed on Sunday afternoon.
Konstantinos Tzolakis and Jens Hjerto-Dahl were both announced at the back end of last week and made their debuts in Saturday’s 2-0 friendly loss against German giants Eintracht Frankfurt.
City‘s injury list is growing and saw Jack Butland added as a long-term absentee on Friday, with him requiring surgery on an arm injury he sustained in training, and didn’t travel to Germany.
The Tigers have a firm interest in Sunderland striker Wilson Isidor, but face competition from elsewhere, while the Black Cats are not in a rush to sell the Haiti World Cup hero, unless they can find a suitable replacement.
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“I’m expecting Leon because I think from our side everything is clear, I think with the club, everything is clear club to club, so I don’t know where the problem is,” the Croatian told Hull Live in Frankfurt after the Tigers’ 2-0 friendly defeat against Bundesliga giants Eintracht. “I’ve been expecting him every day. With Ali-Cho, I think that we agree on everything with the player and Nice. I’m expecting him in the next few hours.
“I’m expecting a lot of players next week, hopefully five or six. I’m buzzing. Mendy, for the last two months we have been working on this, so I am expecting him, too. On Lucas Harrington, I think they need to discuss some small details with the club (Colorado Rapids).
“From what I’ve seen of him, Isidor is a very good player. He has experienced the Premier League, so welcome,” he said with a smile, before reaffirming that ‘he’s not our player, so I can’t say anything.”
Jakirovic has previously spoken of his frustration at the nature of the market in general, and how slow things are following the World Cup, but he expects it to very quickly become frantic, especially heading into the final week of the window ahead of it closing on September 1. “It’s very slow, but this is the market,” he continued. “It’s now very slow, but in the last seven days, it will be very, very quick.
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