‘We want to play an open and expansive game’
TIGERS HOST COVENTRY CITY ON SATURDAY LOOKING TO
GRANT Mccann says he’ll continue to persist with the same methods in a bid to move Hull City out of trouble at the wrong end of the Championship table.
Mccann was jeered by supporters for the second successive game last weekend at Luton Town, after City were beaten 1-0 to slip back into the bottom three, two points adrift of safety.
The City boss has come under intense pressure following a dismal start to the season, which has seen his side win just twice in 14 matches, with question marks over his apparent reluctance to deviate from his preferred 4-3-3 formation.
Even though on loan Manchester United defender Di’shon Bernard suggested the players felt more comfortable operating with a 3-5-2 system during the victory at Middlesbrough, Mccann reverted back to his favoured formation and says he’ll continue to do.
“We want to play an open and expansive game, that’s the way I’ve been at the football club since
I’ve been here,” he told BBC Radio Humberside ahead of Saturday’s home clash with play-off chasing Coventry City.
“We want to play an attractive style of football, we want to create loads of opportunities. We want to have attacking full-backs, good movement and rotation in midfield.
“We want centre-backs who are comfortable on the ball, a goalkeeper who is comfortable on the ball and I think we’ve got that.
“That’s the style of play, that’s how we go into every game to play. Some games it maybe won’t quite work for us, like the first half at Luton when they pressed us high and we couldn’t really get out.
“I think you saw in the second half, you definitely saw it in the Peterborough game and that’s the way we like to approach football games.”
Despite City’s poor run of form and pressure from the terraces on Mccann, the Tigers boss says the club’s hierarchy will judge him on the level of performances from his side, not the results, and believes that results will turn in their favour.
“No, because I’ll be judged on performance,” said Mccann when asked if he needed to change the style in a bid to get results.
“Yes, I know from the outside looking in they’ll be thinking
‘he’ll be judged on results’ – yes, I want to win, I’m one of the biggest winners you’ll ever come across.
“I’m big on performance and we’re big on performance at this football club.
“We know that the more we perform, the more we continue to work on the processes and the way we want to play, things will change.
“That’s the way we’ll approach every game.”