A city fighting to stay afloat

Hull and Bruce will sink or swim as trapdoor beckons

AT around 7.30am this morning, a short line of coaches will leave Walton Street in Hull, destination north London. Exactly a year ago they were heading for Wembley and an historic FA Cup Final.

This time, however, the satnav will be locked firmly on White Hart Lane, Tottenham, and an afternoon that could all but end the club’s residency in the Barclays Premier League.

Having seemingly kept t he bottom three at arm’s length all season, last weekend’s home defeat to Burnley changed everything for Hull City. As teams like Aston Villa and Leicester City have propelled themselves upwards, Steve Bruce’s side have drifted aimlessly in the wrong direction.

As such, Bruce is fully aware of what may now be around the corner. ‘I would be liar if I said that I hadn’t thought about it,’ he admitted yesterday.

‘I would be totally devastated because of what we’ve done over the past couple of years.

‘When you get a bit older and more experienced, you see the carnage relegation often causes.

‘Experience tells you to handle all of this better, but even then, the disappointment of last Saturday is still etched on me.

‘It was a horrific 24 or 48 hours, but the one thing it does is it gets you to dust yourself down and use your experience to say: “Right, OK, I’ve got to get the best out of my players again to make sure we get a good result”.

‘That’s what we have to do. We have two games left. If we die, then we will die with our boots on.’

Bruce was in a defiantly affable mood, but the pressure was clear. It was there in his eyes, the heavy lids betraying the sleep deficit.

This, after all, was not how it was supposed to be this season. Last year’s Cup Final — a 3-2 defeat to Arsenal — and a 16th- place l eague f i nish persuaded Hull owner Assem Allam to spend more than £30million on new players — among them Scotland internationals Andrew Robertson and Allan McGregor (right).

Allam had hoped it would move his club forwards. Clearly, he was wrong.

‘ We have j ust had too many injuries,’ Allam told Sportsmail yesterday.

‘We have a squad that should be between 10th and 12th i n the Premier League — but we have had eight long, serious injuries.

‘We have a first-class manager and a good squad, but our luck has been so bad it’s become a joke.

‘In some ways, it’s a miracle we are not bottom of the league.’

Allam bought Hull in 2010 and says that June’s annual accounts will show his personal investment in the club to have reached £71m.

The 75- year- old Egyptian is currently looking to sell after the local council refused to sell him the freehold to the KC Stadium, something he requires in order to develop the huge site it sits on.

But if and when he does sell up — and he claims to have turned down two offers already — he is confident a new owner will find a club in sound financial order. Clauses in the players’ contracts will, for example, see salaries slashed if Hull do fall into the Championship. There should, then, be no repeat of the difficulties the club faced when it was last relegated back in 2010.

‘Thankfully, we’ve put things in place so that it won’t be one of those Armageddon scenarios,’ said Bruce.

‘The club will still be able to move forward. I’ve got huge respect for the owners and the supporters. They’ve been fantastic with me.

‘With the performance we put in last week, I’ve been at other clubs where they’d have ripped the stadium apart.’

Certainly in Hull, relegation would be felt hard. This week the British Open squash title — sponsored by Allam — is being played at the city’s Airco Arena, while Hull has also been awarded the UK City of Culture honour for 2017.

But all this reinvention, admirable as it is, will pale a little i f East Riding of Yorkshire can no longer boast a Pr e mi e r League f ootball team. This is a part of t he country with the highest number of adults claiming j ob seekers’ allowance, for example. It craves and needs its football.

‘ The club, with the financial backing of the Allam family, have given the city massive international exposure, so relegation would be a big setback,’ said Bernard Noble of the Hull City supporters club.

‘In the context of Hull achieving City of Culture status in 2017, it would be a major blow.

‘However, the backing of Steve Bruce has been fantastic. Fans view him as an honest man.

‘In football, you have to expect highs and lows and I believe that if we are relegated, if we keep the majority of the players, we will be in a good position to come straight back up.’

Allam would not be drawn on his plans for the playing squad if relegation does become a reality.

However, the perceived wisdom is that most of Bruce’s players would stay. Only £ 10m striker Abel Hernandez, scorer of just four league goals since arriving last summer, would likely be sold.

As for the manager, he is merely hoping for an improvement on last weekend’s showing against Burnley. If Hull lose today and then at home t o Manchester United next weekend, they are down. If they pick up points then Newcastle, Sunderland and even Leicester could be caught.

‘We will be better against Spurs because we can’t be any worse than last week,’ Bruce said.

‘Last week we froze, couldn’t handle the occasion. We couldn’t pass, couldn’t run.

‘We all need to learn from our mistakes. If we do, then there could yet be another twist in the tale.’