Big Interview – Boss Grant McCann’s vision for Hull City
GRANT McCann has hailed under-fire chairman Assem Allam for refusing to cash in on Hull City wing wizard Jarrod Bowen.
Bowen, 22, has netted 40 goals in 94 Championship starts for the Tigers and was linked with every- one from Arsenal to Spurs during the summer.
But despite several rounds of tentative talks and informal offers, nobody met Hull’s £15m valuation of a player who is under contract until 2021.
In the end, Bowen was the only one of the division’s nine leading scorers not to start the 2019-20 campaign in the Premier League - and the topflight’s loss has proved Hull’s gain with the wide man already five goals to the good.
“To be fair, we were as surprised as anyone else to see Jarrod here in September,” said McCann, who left Doncaster to take charge at Hull after Nigel Adkins resigned in May.
Ambitious
“He’s had two big years here. The first year, he got 14 or 15 goals. He proved it wasn’t a one-off by getting 22 in the second. This season, he’s started exactly the same way. He’s a real talent and one of the best – if not the best – wide players in the Championship.
“But fair play to the owner. He didn’t put me or Jarrod under any pressure. It was never a case of ‘We’re going to sell you’, or ‘You need to be gone’. He was happy for Jarrod to be here and it was the same with (Polish international winger) Kamil Grosicki.
“Thankfully, Jarrod’s the type of lad who is calm and collected. He comes in, he trains the same way every day and he doesn’t worry about speculation. I think you can see that clearly in his performances.”
Even with Bowen in the side, plenty of summer predictions saw Hull pegged for a season of struggle.
Relegation from the Premier League in 2017 was followed by a raft of player departures and cost-cutting measures that severely hampered the ability of Leonid Slutsky and then Adkins to mount a promotion challenge. Parachute payments have since slowed to a trickle and, with Allam unwilling to invest amid an ongoing search for a buyer, survival was widely seen as the primary aim.
McCann, though, has bolder ambitions. Last weekend’s 3-0 defeat at Huddersfield marked the end of a six-match unbeaten run in all competitions, and the Northern Irishman is convinced his side can beat the odds.
“We want to challenge at the top of the league,” says McCann, who won 39 caps for his country and made over 500 career appearances for the likes of Cheltenham, Scunthorpe and Peterborough.
“That’s the reason I came here. I didn’t leave Doncaster just to sit in mid-table or float above the relegation zone.
“People talk about good results on the road, but we aren’t satisfied with a 2-2 against Cardiff or a 2-2 against Wigan. That’s no disrespect to those clubs - we just don’t settle for second-best.
“We set our standards high. We set our expectations high. Because even if you fall short, you’ll have had a decent season. I’m a firm believer in that, and that’s our mindset here.
Confident
“It’s probably taken a little bit of time for everybody to believe it, the players included. But I just get the sense now that we’ve got a group of staff and players who feel they’ve got a real chance. “And if you look at it objectively, we should be higher. We threw three points away against Wigan. We threw three points away against Cardiff. Both games, we were 2-1 up into the 90th minute. We’re that close to being a very good team.
“I know there’ll be 16 or 17 clubs thinking the same way, but who cares? I’ve always said what I think, and I don’t worry about what other people say.
“We’ll push for that top six, and if anybody in that dressing room doesn’t agree, they should probably find somewhere else to play football.”
McCann’s confidence has been earned through experience. As a player, he was a gifted midfield technician with a left peg that could - in the words of Ray Clemence - open a tin of baked beans.
“I still take the odd freekick in training,” laughs the 39-year-old. “Kamil’s scoring a few at the moment so he’s obviously learned a thing or two!”
Promoted three times with three different clubs, his finest years came at Peterborough as the captain of Darren Ferguson’s star-studded side. When the Scot’s second spell at London Road was terminated in 2015, McCann returned in a coaching role under Graham Westley before taking full charge - aged just 36 - in April 2016. “Working with (director of football) Barry Fry, pictured below, and (owner) Darragh MacAnthony was brilliant for me,” says McCann. “I learned so much and I haven’t got a bad word to say about either of them. Barry’s great, because he tells you what he thinks. He doesn’t sugar-coat anything.
Experience
“To have him on the training ground with me every day was brilliant. He’s someone who even now will lend an ear, and Darragh’s the same. They’ve been around the block in this game and they know what it takes.”
He lasted 22 months and 104 games, no mean feat at a club that has rattled through nine permanent managers in the
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past ten years. It was, though, a move to Doncaster Rovers in 2018 that allowed McCann to blossom as a manager - and earned him a crack at the Championship.
“That first year at Peterborough, I probably took too much on,” he admits. “When you first go into management, you try to do everything.
“I was taking things personally. It was affecting my family life. After a bad result, I didn’t want to see anyone until Monday.
“But you learn. I felt a lot better in my second year. I managed my time more. I spent more time with my family. I wasn’t at the football club 24/7 - I was getting away, making sure I had a bit of a release from it.
“Going into Doncaster I felt a lot more clear in my mind. I felt a lot more free and focussed in my thinking.
“It’s still difficult. As a manager, your phone never stops ringing. But you get a bit older. You get a bit wiser.
“I’m still young, but I feel like I’ve been in the business for ten years. Hopefully, Hull are getting the benefit of that experience.”