Mike Phelan
Hull are 15th in the league with 7 points despite not won a league fixture since August when they were 2-0 victors at Swansea. Phelen, who was officially pointed as Tigers boss yesterday admits that the run up Christmas from now on will be vitally important in picking up much needed points.
“Picking up points at this level is difficult, no matter which team you are and who you are playing against,” said Phelan. “We have seven points on the board after seven games and so we now need to try and get as many as we can between now and Christmas.
“However, it’s no different in the fact that the next game you play is the next game you want to win and we’ll be treating it that way. “I’m glad that most of my players have returned from international duty fit, so we’ll go down to Bournemouth with as strong a squad as we’ve got.
“Bournemouth are a side that show a willingness and desire to do the correct things most of the time. They play good, tight, inter-passing football but they also have an option of suddenly going forward with one pass. They have a striker who has done really, really well to come back from a serious injury (Callum Wilson) and he looks raring to go.
“Bournemouth pose different problems in different areas of the field, but we have our game-plan and we know what we have to do to try and achieve a result down there.”
Hull face two difficult back-to-back away trips, upon the competition of tomorrow’s fixture with the Cherries they must travel to the Britannia Stadium in a week's time to face a struggling Stoke City.