Hull City head coach Nigel Adkins has spoken about the growing competition for places ahead of the clash against Nottingham Forest in the FA Cup this weekend.
With Adkins earlier confirming that David Marshall would be back between the sticks for the fourth round tie at the KCOM Stadium, in his fuller press conference he also confirmed that Ondrej Mazuch and Will Keane were in contention for starting positions as well.
Speaking to the Official Site as he met with the media, Adkins explained.
‘Will Keane`s been out for 14 months but managed to get a bit of game time against Sunderland last weekend, so he`s going to be pushing for some involvement against Nottingham Forest. There`s opportunities for players to come back. Ondrej Mazuch got injured against Leeds United a month ago and he was such a dominant force in that game. He`s trained well this week so he comes into contention for the weekend.’
Adkins went on to say.
‘It`s not just about 11 players, we need the whole squad contributing. Competition for places is so important. With Kamil, we`ll have to wait and see. He did a bit more outside yesterday morning. He`s been out for a period of time now and we want to get him back involved, but we`ll have to wait and see.’
Max Clark, Markus Henriksen, Adama Diomande and Kevin Stewart are the others who could also see a starting spot this weekend as well.
Adkins also spoke about wanting the side to be more clinical as we go in search of more goals with only three scored in our last eight games.
‘We’re creating big chances – I think we’re fourth in the division at this moment in for chances created – but right now our conversion rate isn’t what we’d like it to be. That’s the missing piece of the jigsaw. We’re having more attacking third entries, shots, crosses, corners – all sorts of different things – but the final piece of the jigsaw is always sticking the ball in the back of the net.’
He went on to say.
‘That’s the most important bit and we all know that, so we’ve got to look to improve on that front going forward. In every game I’ve been here, we’ve had big, big chances but we haven’t managed to put those away on a consistent basis. Performances have been good, but we need to turn to those performances into results by scoring more goals. Some may say we’re not having that little bit of fortune go our way, but on the other hand, maybe we’re not being ruthless enough in front of goal. That will only change through practice though. We need to do the basics to an elite level and take things from there. There’s a good focus amongst the group and we’re working hard on the training ground to address the situation.’
