Hull look to spread anxiety in the ranks at Palace
HEAD COACH Marco Silva is urging Hull City to prey upon the relegation anxieties of Crystal Palace by triumphing at Selhurst Park on Sunday to set up a tense final day of Premier League reckoning on May 21.
With just two games of the season to go, the Tigers, Palace and Swansea City are pitted in a three-way survival fight to avoid accompanying Sunderland and Middlesbrough into the Championship.
The Swans – who are currently one point above third-from-bottom Hull – are in action at basement club Sunderland tomorrow afternoon, where an away victory would mean that Silva’s side would have to win at SE25 to maintain their hopes of a ‘great escape’.
While that worst-case scenario would pile the pre-match pressure onto the shoulders of the Tigers, Silva is conscious that nerves will be equally prevalent among the Palace camp on Sunday too.
A win against the Eagles – who have lost back-to-back games to Burnley and Manchester City – would cut the gap between the clubs to just a solitary point ahead of the following weekend’s action.
The final-day round of games see Hull welcome Tottenham Hotspur and Palace travel to Manchester United, where they have lost on their last nine league visits.
Clearly aware of the potential of apprehension spreading among Eagles supporters, manager Sam Allardyce has warned fans that any show of nerves could affect his players’ performance on Sunday lunch-time, with the veteran boss leaving nothing to chance as he attempts to avoid his club’s fate going down to the wire in a nervewracking last game.
Silva, who has confirmed that winger Lazar Markovic is out for the club’s final two games with an ankle injury, said: “Three or four weeks ago, everybody thought it was between us, Swansea and Middlesbrough. Nobody put Crystal Palace in this fight.
“Now, they are in a better position than us, but they (must) keep on fighting and need to do something to be safe, like we do.
“It is a fight and now it is a fight between the three clubs. When we were out of the bottom three, I said the same thing; it will be a fight until the end.
“That is my opinion and we will fight. I believe in us. These are like finals at this moment and the next game is important. It is also important for our opponents.”
Last weekend brought a shock 2-0 home loss to Sunderland, which saw Hull drop into the relegation positions for the first time in a month, but Silva insists that his players are over the disappointment of those deflating events and are now fully focused and ready for what amount to two ‘cup finals’.
The Portuguese is also likely to be heartened by the fact that his players have shown tremendous character previously by reacting well to several setbacks since his arrival in January, with gutsy wins against Swansea, West Ham and Watford being three welldocumented examples.
Silva added: “We need to win the games. We need to win the next (game) and it is like a final to us.
“We will play it like a final and then see what happens next week.
“We continue to believe and this is the most important thing. The players have worked hard all week. We have changed nothing.
“Of course we analysed last week and understand what we need to do differently, but we keep altogether and keep fighting, like I have seen from our players in training this week.
“I believe we can win the next game.”
He added: “It was not a good Saturday last week and it was not easy inside the dressing room after the match.
“But it is our obligation, starting with the manager, to put players in the right direction again. We have to be ready to fight for the next two games. These are two finals for us.
“During the week we talked about the last game. We analysed. I said after the game that the attitude of our players, the commitment they showed was the same as the others.
“We had a lot of chances to score, but in the last moment we did not have a good day.”
Given the fighting spirit shown by the Tigers so far this year, supporters are clinging to the hope that another twist may yet occur in their safety quest.
While Hull’s reverse to Sunderland represented a result that few saw coming, Silva hopes that the Premier League’s capacity to surprise can come to the fore again this weekend, for much more positive reasons this time for his side, who are chasing their first away league win since August 20.
On the potential for another dramatic development in the survival race, he added: “That is possible. Last Saturday was a twist and it is possible always.
“It is important for us that we do not change anything. We look for our work and the next game is most important to us.
“We need to win the game and we will work hard to win the game. We have to do our best.”
Defender Omar Elabdellaoui could return for Sunday’s crunch encounter, with the Norweigan international having missed the club’s last seven games with an ongoing back problem.