TIGERS HAVE A TOUGH JOB TO SURVIVE
MILLWALL boss Gary Rowett says Hull City have given themselves “a very difficult job to stay up” after choosing to sell their two attacking stars Jarrod Bowen and Kamil Grosicki in January.
City have fallen back into the Championship’s bottom three after losing back-to-back games at West Brom and Bristol City, with only a 12-point penalty that hangs over Wigan offering them any comfort with four games to play.
Millwall are the Tigers’ next opponents tomorrow and the Londoners will arrive at the KCOM Stadium still chasing a top six finish.
City have to find a much-needed win to stand any realistic chance of escaping the bottom three this weekend but Rowett knows he will face an opponent whose threats have been diminished by their January business.
Bowen was sold to West Ham in a deal that could be worth up to £22m, while Kamil Grosicki joined West Brom for £800,000.
Between them the pair had scored 22 league goals in half a season.
“It’s been a difficult period for Hull,” said Rowett, whose Millwall side are 11th and five points adrift of the play-offs following a 2-0 loss to Middlesbrough this week.
“Grant Mccann has gone in and done a really, really good job until the January window when for whatever reason, and I’m not privy to those reasons, they sold their two best players in Grosicki and Bowen.
“Everyone knows how big a miss both of those would be to any side.
“Results have not been as good since then and they are still in there fighting.
“They beat Middlesbrough and have been in every game. We have got to go there and perform, if we don’t do that we’ll give them a chance of winning.
“You can see with ourselves when we are short of a few options what a massive effect that can have.
“Ourselves and teams like Hull rely on one or two players to be firing and in form.
“The fact Hull lost those players made it a very difficult job to stay up.”