Marked for Simon Cunningham
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad29 Jun 2037
Simon Cunningham damages knee ligaments — 16 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 16 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.
Market29 Jun 2037
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Hull City is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Squad29 Jun 2037
Enis Destan in a row with a teammate
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Hull City this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad29 Jun 2037
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Jaime Blanco is 20, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Boardroom29 Jun 2037
The numbers do not look good at Hull City
Wages have outrun income and the accountants have started attending meetings they used to send apologies to. Ambition comes second in a season like this.
Squad29 Jun 2037
Words at Hull City training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Darko Gyabi is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad22 Jun 2037
A knee injury of the worst kind for Simon Cunningham
24 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Hull City lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Boardroom22 Jun 2037
The scrutiny sharpens at Hull City
Nobody upstairs has said anything, which is the loudest thing they could do. Results buy silence in this game; the account at Hull City is running low.
Squad22 Jun 2037
Lilian Bague: that is not what I was promised
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Hull City have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Market22 Jun 2037
Only the photograph left for Briar Bateman
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Briar Bateman will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Hull City the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Boardroom22 Jun 2037
There is no worse way to lose a footballer. Briar Bateman has pre-agreed a move away, which means every appearance between now and June is made by a man the club can no longer sell, and somebody upstairs will be asked why the contract was allowed to get here.
Squad22 Jun 2037
Ivor Pandur in a row with a teammate
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Hull City this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad15 Jun 2037
Simon Cunningham damages knee ligaments — 34 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 34 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.
Squad15 Jun 2037
Darko Gyabi: that is not what I was promised
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Hull City have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Squad15 Jun 2037
Enis Destan in a row with a teammate
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Hull City this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.