Head coach Leonid Slutsky has admitted that Hull city’s game against Birmingham City is about more than just three points.
With Hull looking for their first win since late August, and after conceding two late goals in the last two games, Slutsky described the game as being ‘very important’ purely from the point of view of restoring some confidence to the group.
Speaking to the Official Site in his pre game press conference, Slutsky knew everybody needed the game to give them a boost.
‘This match is very important, not only for the three points but also to help bring back our confidence both for the players and for the supporters. I watched Birmingham’s game against Sheffield Wednesday on Wednesday night and we have prepared to the maximum for this game on Saturday. When you have some difficult results all in a row, the next game becomes more difficult for the team, but we have no other choice than to put our maximum into the game against Birmingham to try and win the match. We know in the Championship that all results are possible and I think that is why it is such a fascinating league for people to watch.’
Clearly for results to improve, Slutsky knew our backline had to be tighter and we needed to start dominating matches for longer periods of time.
‘We have tried with two central defenders and with three central defenders but we continue to concede goals. In some ways this is the normal situation when we are building a new defence with new players. Concentration has been lost for a few seconds and the most important thing for me now is the balance of the team – how we play in defence and in attack.’
The Russian went on to say.
‘We are only playing the way I want us to play for about 30 minutes in matches at the moment. I know it is nearly impossible to dominate matches for all 90 minutes, but we maybe need to increase our best play to 60 or 70 minutes to bring stable results. That has to be a target. The only way forward is to work very hard and we have spoken about this as a group. I trust this group of players and they trust me. I feel that we are very close to good results coming and we have to show our level. Saturday’s game against Birmingham is the only one that we are thinking about and we are confident that we can change our situation.’
Fraiser Campbell was also quoted by the Hull Daily Mail and he backed Slutsky to get it right at the club despite the recent run.
‘He is a great guy and a great manager. The players are all 100 per cent fully behind him. We have meetings all the time and talk about how we feel and he feels and we are all on the same page. It is just those little things, fine-tuning that has gone against us recently. We will hopefully work hard and change those things which are going against us. He is not afraid to speak to you about something if he is unsure. It’s little things like traditional things over here like Christmas time. He will ask you about it. He is listening to what we have got to say and we are all listening to what he’s saying.’
With Campbell getting himself off the mark in the game against Reading, he went on to say.
‘We just need to score more goals than the opposition! We need be more consistent. We have conceded in previous games and bring that fear into the next games and we start a bit cagily. There’s been spells in games where we have dominated teams for 30-35 minutes. We really need to capitalise on that a bit better. But we are doing alright, we just need to fine-tune it to kick us on.’
The outlet were also reporting that we were in talks with Max Clark over a new deal with the 21 year old out of contract at the end of the season.
