Hull City entered the transfer race hardly expecting anything given how terribly their season had fared till then. And with a new manager coming to helm, fans were mentally prepared to give him time to settle as he picked up the ruins from the former boss Mike Phelan. But the Portuguese boss, Marco Silva, has totally turned it around for the Tigers in no time.
Of course, he had a tight transfer budget and bad league position to persuade quality options to come to KCOM, but he played his cards well, landing eight fresh faces last month, though it meant selling some key players as well.
TRANSFERS
INS
- Markus Henriksen from AZ Alkmaar for £4.5m
- Oumar Niasse from Everton for loan
- Evandro Goebel from Porto for an undisclosed fee
- Omar Elabdellaoui from Olympiakos on loan
- Lazar Markovic from Liverpool on loan
- Andrea Ranocchia from Inter Milan on loan
- Alfred N’Diaye from Villarreal on loan
- Kamil Grosicki from Rennes for £7m
OUTS
- Harvey Rogers to Accrington on loan
- Jonathan Edwards to Accrington on loan
- Allan McGregor to Cardiff City on loan
- Jake Livermore to West Brom for £10m
- Robert Snodgrass to West Ham for £10.2m
- James Weir to Wigan on loan
- Alex Bruce to Wigan on loan
Source: Sky Sports
Silva initially dealt in players from his former clubs, a trend set by Sunderland manager David Moyes, and brought in Evandro Goebel from FC Porto and Omar Elabdellaoui from Olympiakos. And quite surprisingly, the manager has hardly given any time to the new recruits to adapt to the game, throwing them directly into big matches against Chelsea and Manchester United.
And considered the first half of their season where they were largely used to sitting on the bench, it is safe to say that the likes of Evandro, Markovic, Niasse, Markovic and Elabdellaoui have been tremendously effective at Hull. Inter loanee Andrea Ranocchia is surely the star signing of the window. The 28-year-old centre-half has had experience at top level football and will surely enrich Hull’s backline, although he got his first start from the bench as a wing-back at Old Trafford.
Silva has got himself a brilliant option in Kamil Grosicki. The Polish winger has garnered attention with perfect crosses and set-pieces and could be a season changer for Hull. He will be filling in for Snodgrass, which means he’ll be under quite a lot of pressure.
T4O Verdict: 6.5
Although the sale of Robert Snodgrass and Jake Livermore hasn’t been dearly missed by Hull yet, losing out on seasoned midfielders surely has its side effects. Silva has hardly got his tactics wrong until now but it can change pretty soon in the Premier League.
Henriksen has come to the squad injured and won’t return before April, while N’Diaye, who returned from his loan stint from Villarreal, has been hardly impressive in Spain. Hence, the void left by the star departures in the middle still remains, which was exacerbated by Ryan Mason’s injury.
