Hull boss Liam Rosenior sees brighter future

Posted Sunday, November 06, 2022 by PA

New Hull boss Liam Rosenior believes his side have all the makings of a good Championship team after 10-man Tigers played out a battling 0-0 draw against Millwall.

The game-changing moment arrived in the 37th minute when Hull forward Oscar Estupinan was dismissed for a high foot on Leeds loanee Charlie Cresswell.

But the visitors did not falter and held out for a clean sheet against play-off chasing Millwall who had won each of their previous four matches at The Den.

“Coming here where Millwall have won seven games out of nine at home, second-best record in the league and everybody said to me it couldn’t be a tougher game for your first-ever permanent manager’s job,” said Rosenior, who was only appointed on Thursday.

“I don’t disagree with that, so to see the application, I’ve had two real working days with the players in terms of sessions so for them to take on the tactical information and to give the energy, passion and commitment, that has to be the base of a successful team.

“If we keep those levels of commitment and application, we can climb up the table.”

Of top scorer Estupinan, he said: “I don’t think he’s even tried to win the ball, he can’t see the player so it’s not a challenge, he’s tried to take the ball down so it was more of a collision.

“I can see why the referee’s given it in terms of what it looks like. I feel sorry for Oscar because he’s saying sorry to me and all the lads in there.

“He was magnificent for the first half-hour in terms of the energy he brought. The biggest thing for me is to understand why it was given, I just hope it’s not seen as dangerous or reckless play because he has tried to take the ball down, it’s just an unfortunate incident.”

Lions boss Gary Rowett, meanwhile, was left to lament his side’s lack of creativity, as they failed to score for the third game running.

And though he sympathised with Colombian Estupinan, he felt referee John Busby made the right decision.

“The game is pretty even up to the point when they have a man sent off, there was little space on the pitch,” he said.

“In my opinion, it is reckless even though he hasn’t meant to do it – he catches Cressy in the face and he needed a lot of stitches at half-time.

“After that you just know what is going to happen – that they are going to drop in, they are going to test our patience and make it hard for us to play through them. They did. They defended brilliantly.

“Any ball that came into the box they managed to get their head on it whereas you’d expect sometimes us to create more of a threat with the amount of balls we put into the box – 24 shots and 10 corners.

“We were pretty much dominant, as you’d expect with those statistics, but you’ve got to go and put one in the net.

“As much as we feel it is an opportunity missed, we’re not going to win every home game – the Championship doesn’t work like that, you have little spells where things don’t quite go how you want them to with the relevant quality.”