City have 14 games left between now and early May to preserve their Championship status
Hull City head coach Ruben Selles has revealed how the club’s plans to take in Sunderland’s 2-1 defeat at Leeds United on Monday night were foiled. Selles had planned to send backroom staff members Tobias Loveland and James Oliver-Pearce to Elland Road to cast a glance over Saturday’s opponents, only to be told City were too late for tickets for the sold-out contest.
Instead, the Tigers’ management staff watched the game on television as part of their analysis of the Black Cats and saw striker Wilson Isidor fire them into the front, only to concede twice late on, including Pascal Struijk’s winner four seconds from the end of added time.
That result effectively ended their automatic promotion hopes, and given their 15-point gap to seventh, a play-off place looks almost certain.
City, who sit a place and point above the drop zone, will be looking to build on last weekend’s draw with Norwich, claim a fourth away win in five games and in the process, inflict a first home league defeat on a Sunderland side that have won 10 and drawn six of their Stadium of Light outings in the Championship.
“No, we didn’t (go to Elland Road),” Selles told Hull Live. “Toby (Loveland) and James (Oliver-Pearce) were ready to go, but we could not get the tickets for some reason. We watched the game live on TV, and then we watched it from the tactical camp. We have been in some other (Sunderland) games, so we worked the game as usual.
“Apparently, it was sold out, or we are too late. I don’t know what it was there, but we were not able to manage to get any tickets,” he joked before going on to say that he felt the Black Cats were very good on the night and expects them to be determined to get that ending out of their system against the Tigers.
“First of all, I think it was Neil Warnock (on Sky Sports) after the game who talked about those couple of key moments of the game so they could keep growing. When you are as competitive as they are, and you have been as competitive as they were in that game, it’s more about, ‘next time that we will be there, we will need to do this or that, but we can beat anybody’, and I think they went there and made a fantastic performance.
“For the first 65, 70 minutes, they controlled the game. Leeds is a very powerful team, but I think they were as good as Leeds in that game, and the fact that they lost the game in two set plays can really happen to anybody. It happened to Leeds against us (3-3 draw) when they lost the three points in the two set pieces.
“I think this league is like that; I would not expect any better or any worse from them for losing that game in the last second. They would take it that how competitive they were and how competitive they can be, and that is going to be, so I expect a very powerful team in front of us.
“We know what they are, and we know the results, of course, but the first thing for us is just to try to be ourselves, and I think if we are ourselves, we can compete not only against them, against anybody as, as we have proved.
“This is about how competitive we can be. We obviously get that they got some results against against teams in and around us, but we need to find our way to do it.”
City’s hopes of survival were boosted on Wednesday night when Plymouth Argyle missed the chance to leapfrog City and dump them back in the drop zone with a 1-1 draw at bottom-side Luton Town, who also missed the chance to draw level on points with Selles’ men.
While others will look at what’s going on elsewhere, Selles says his sole focus has to be on making sure the Tigers do their job, with their destiny and fate very much in their own hands over the course of the next 14 games.
“I try not to be focused on the things that I cannot control,” he continued. “I know it’s a topic, but it is what it is. When the game (Luton vs Plymouth) finished, I got a text message to say it was a good result.
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