Rosenior hoping MKM work can light the way to top six
Hull City head coach Liam Rosenior hopes the work carried out on the MKM Stadium pitch will give his side a significant advantage in the play-off race. The playing surface at City’s 25,500-seater home has come under heavy scrutiny in recent weeks, having struggled to recover after a flurry of games and some awful weather conditions in East
Yorkshire with the club pledging £1.5m to try and fix it during the summer months.
To improve the situation now, owner Acun Ilicali has since invested in some state-of-the-art lighting equipment shipped over from the Netherlands in a bid to help the surface recover, and it’s hoped, it will be in a much better state by the time City kick-off against West Brom this lunchtime than it was when the Tigers were beaten by Swansea earlier this month.
If you’ve driven past the MKM Stadium in the past couple of weeks and wondered what the bright purple glow emanating up into the night sky was, it’s the new lamps, imported from the other side of the North Sea.
“The conversations we’ve had about the pitch haven’t just started now, we were prepared for this to happen. We prepared to a point where we’ve got a few short-term solutions that we’ve worked really hard and invested a lot of money in for the now,” the Tigers boss told the Mail.
“One hundred per cent,” Rosenior
said of the pitch improving. “The club do everything they can to help me do the best job I can in helping the team win games.
“I’ve said it before, the club have put a lot of money into the new lights that have been on pretty much 24 hours a day on the pitch. It’s unbelievable, we got them from Amsterdam.
“They’re amazing, top-of-therange, technical lights that we’ve brought in.
“I’ve been told by my senior groundsman, Aaron, that they’re top, and Acun and Tan (Kesler) have put the money in to find a solution in the short term.
“We know our strengths, we’re a football team.
“We’re probably one of the smallest teams in the league.
“I want footballers I believe in playing this way, and you’ve got to create an environment where you can help that as much as possible,
but West Brom are a good football team as well and I think it’s going to make for a really good game.”
Rosenior has also paid tribute to Ilicali for stumping up the cash to enable the players and staff to stay in Southampton after their terrific 2-1 win on Tuesday night, before flying back on Wednesday, which he believes will have helped their preparation for the weekend visit of the Baggies.
“Just one and I passed out (glass of red),” he joked. “I was really tired, it was a good evening. It was nice to go back to the hotel as a group of staff and a group of players and then sit together.
“Thanks to Acun and Tan for allowing us the extra night in the hotel because we’ve got another really, really big game on Saturday lunchtime.
“It just stops us from getting back home at four or five o’clock in the morning or being on a bus because we couldn’t get a flight back after the game.
“I just want the players’ preparations to be at an elite level, at the best level possible, so for the players to get a good night’s sleep and then fly back in the morning, I thought it was the right way to go and then hopefully we have a performance with the same energy and intensity as we did on Tuesday.”