Due to a variety of reasons - including but not solely because of crap KO time - I couldn't get to the WBA game
Ruben Selles has already made it clear to Hull City bosses that he wants to get the size of the squad to a more manageable level, with some of that work expected to happen in January. City's squad stands at a staggering 38 players, and while that does include a flurry of young players who have not featured in the Championship yet this season, the number remains too high for the new head coach and a major drain on the club's finances. Selles is thought to want a working group of around 22 to 23 players, similar to former manager Liam Rosenior, and the club will look to trim away some of the fat when the transfer window opens next month. The Tigers are at their squad limit within EFL rules and at this stage, cannot register any more players, so there will be a need to make some big decisions in the coming days. The Tigers will be able to de-register the suspended Oscar Zambrano, with the Ecuador international unlikely to play again this season after being slapped with a 16-month doping ban, and while he will appeal that to CAS, it's not expected to be reduced enough to see him feature before the campaign ends, though he remains on the payroll. Injured duo Liam Millar and Mohamed Belloumi are two others who will not play again this term, and can be de-registered if need be. Newly-appointed sporting director Jared Dublin says the club will look to move players out next month, and again in the summer, in a bid to lower the number and cost of the Tigers' squad, which ballooned in the summer. "Well, Ruben's told me once he took over that he prefers to work with a smaller squad," Dublin told Hull Live. "Of course, you have to balance the injuries that we already have with two wingers being out for the season, which means that, of course, we'll have to supplement in certain areas, but yes, at the minute, the squad is large. "We have players that out of contract in the summer, so we expect that we will dwindle that a bit to a more comfortable level both for the head coach and for the club to continue moving forward. "Now, are there times when you need that extra push and that extra bit of quality to get you over the line or take you out of your current predicament? The answer would be yes at times, but in an ideal world, when we operate with this size of a squad moving forward, the answer is no."
a staggering 38 players.... and not one of them will likely ever have than word associated with their name.
The squad is a bit bloated, Chazz. It’s just unfortunately bloated with crap. Just look at how many central midfielders we have. Our summer transfer was so haphazard so we ended up signing players for the sake of it late on.
We did our business so late in the summer that we didn't loan out quite a few players we should have, both for our squad size and their career progression.
How is it bloated? Don’t we name 25 in the squad like every year? It’s bloated because we ****ed about giving contracts to furlong Fleming and Callum jones!! I mean ffs he’s been here since 2019 And never plays apart from four games in 2019! We gave him a new contract for 2 1/2 years in january 23 !! WTF
Agree Chazz it’s a load of bollocks. 38 is just for dramatic effect. Included in that will be pretty much the entire u21s squad ffs
Bloated you say, one good fart will soon clear that. It will sound like a flock of seagulls taking off.
I think my perception of bloated is because we have three number 10s in Ömür, Mehlem and Palmer and none have really had any consistency to nail down a place. We’re constantly chopping and changing the midfield. It’s also ridiculous we have four left-backs on the books in Giles, Jacob, Fleming and Furlong and none of them have made the position their own either.
The 38 quoted is a totally pointless figure since it includes U23s. Every club will have loads of you include those. But the point that we have too many senior players seems valid. Modern managers don't like a massive squad, they want to keep players involved, motivated and sharp which is difficult if you have too many of them. Guardiola famously likes a small squad, and Rosenior and Selles have both talked about it here. Presumably Walter wanted a bigger squad which is why we bloated it so much in the summer. That's just another way in which we set ourselves back in the summer, undoing the principles we'd previously established only to go back to them again now a few months later.
Couldn’t agree more with that. But then we said it back in august it was a scattergun approach by the brains trust
