Marco Silva checks in at Hull City and starts planning for a miracle

[Lebohang]

Marco Silva checks in at Hull City and starts planning for a miracle

 

The Portuguese refused to liken himself to José Mourinho and expressed confidence he could lift the Premier League’s bottom club out of danger.

 

One of the two security guards stationed outside Hull City’s training ground on Friday clutched a sheet of densely scripted A4 paper. It detailed the names of journalists permitted entry to Marco Silva’s unveiling as the club’s manager and proved something of a novelty.

 

“This is the first time we’ve ever needed a list,” joked one sentry, pulling his collar up against the driving rain and raw wind on one of those bleak January days which never seems to become properly light.

 

Inside the slightly old-fashioned clubhouse which serves as Hull’s weekday HQ, the reason for all this fuss sat behind a table, stressing that the weather really was the least of his problems before deflecting repeated invitations to liken himself to José Mourinho.

 

The 39-year-old Portuguese charged with somehow lifting Hull off the bottom of the Premier League and rescuing them from relegation is not only a good friend of Manchester United’s manager but looks a bit like a cross between a younger Mourinho and Luís Figo. Yet if Silva’s appearance alone invites parallels, the former Estoril, Sporting Lisbon and Olympiakos manager prefers to avoid them.

 

“I don’t like the comparison with José,” says a man more concerned with pulling off what he readily acknowledges would be “a miracle” in east Yorkshire. “It’s not a bad one and José’s a fantastic, open person but I don’t like it.” Yet if Mourinho is the “special one” how does he describe himself? “As Marco Silva,” he replies. “That’s my name.”

 

Despite winning last season’s Greek title with Olympiakos, lifting the Portuguese cup at Sporting and, earlier, leading Estoril into Portugal’s top tier, Silva was very much a shock choice to succeed the sacked Mike Phelan.

 

On his part, though, this was very much a planned move. It is no accident that his English, honed during that year in Athens, is much better than advertised and reduced Friday’s interpreter to a peripheral role. “In Greece I was already thinking about the next step – learning English was part of that,” he says. “The Premier League is the biggest league. Now my biggest ambition is this miracle.”

 

Despite signing merely a six-month contract at a club very much up for sale, his calm courtesy and humour-tinged charm are underpinned by considerable self-assurance and he stresses longevity is the ambition. “My aim,” he says. “Is to stay many more years in the Premier League.”

 

Doing so may well require the completion of that “miracle” and, as he prepared for Saturday’s FA Cup tie at home to Swansea City, Silva will doubtless have been relieved to learn that the Allam family, Hull’s owners, had turned down a £3m bid for Robert Snodgrass from West Ham. The Scotland winger is the team’s most gifted player and Silva desperately needs him on his side.

 

“Of course, this job is a risk,” he says. “But a coach’s life always has risks and I believe it’s possible to change this situation. I know we don’t have a lot of time but I would tell fans to believe, like I believe.”

 

A coach who although represented by Carlos Gonçalves is close to Jorge Mendes, the Portuguese super-agent, has faith an understaffed squad will shortly be restocked. “I know what the team needs,” he says. “The owners know what the team needs; you wait until we do our business. But it’s clear we need to improve our roster. Today I have only 14 or 15 fit players.”

 

Apart from working his contacts to import talent, he indicated Hull’s all-Portuguese backroom could soon be supplemented by an English coach – “maybe next week” – hired to help accelerate his integration to British life.

 

Silva certainly could be forgiven for feeling a certain culture shock after being parachuted into possibly the Premier League’s most modest training facility. “It’s true, it’s different from Olympiakos and Sporting,” he agrees, surveying the cloud shrouding the bottom of the long, narrow, semi-rural lane in Cottingham leading to his new workplace.

 

Situated a few miles west of Hull, resolutely middle-class Cottingham – among England’s safest Conservative seats, local MP key Brexiteer David Davis – is one of those places which cannot quite decide whether it is a large country village or a leafy suburban dormitory. It may initially seem a slightly puzzling habitat to a lifelong urbanite accustomed to Lisbon and Athens but Silva will not have to venture far to feel oddly at home.

 

After all, a reminder of the Vasco da Gama bridge – Europe’s longest – arcing imperiously, and seemingly endlessly, over the Tagus is merely a long goal-kick away. The Humber bridge possesses marginally less wow factor but remains an impressive, similarly evocative, sight.

 

Whereas Da Gama, one of the great Portuguese explorers, was the first European to reach India by sea, Silva follows in the footsteps of, among others, Mourinho, André Villas-Boas and Sheffield Wednesday’s Carlos Carvalhal in attempting to conquer England.

 

Hull’s status as the UK’s city of culture for 2017 may reflect a changing image and spirit of regeneration but its football club remains one of the country’s toughest outposts.

 

Indeed, many believe even his friend Mourinho – whom he will shortly meet in the EFL Cup semi-finals – might struggle to keep Hull in the top tier. “Sometimes miracles do happen, though,” Silva counters. “Maybe in May the miracle happens here.”

 

The Guardian

 

 

Looking for a Silva lining: the big problems facing Hull’s new manager

 

Marco Silva has managed Sporting Lisbon and Olympiakos but is he fully ready for the troubles on and off the pitch with the Premier League’s basement club?

 

After managerial stints spent working beside the Atlantic (Estoril and Sporting Lisbon) and then the Mediterranean (Olympiakos), Marco Silva is now set for a North Sea idyll. But might the Hull air prove a little too bracing for a coach poised to accept what many people regard as the Premier League’s impossible job? There are certainly pressing and wider issues at the division’s bottom club.

 

The manager is not the main problem

 

Given the bleak context, Mike Phelan did as well as could reasonably be expected. When Steve Bruce walked out in despair at the end of July, Phelan performed wonders to galvanise the dressing room and, despite having only 13 fit senior players, choreographed early wins against Leicester City and Swansea City. With his squad ravaged by injuries and having lost Mohamed Diamé to Newcastle United, he was further damaged when his board recruited too late, and too sparsely, at the end of August. The attacking department remains particularly under-staffed. Unfortunately Ryan Mason, his £13m record midfield signing from Tottenham, has disappointed and, although the dressing room remained largely united behind a popular manager until the bitter end, Phelan’s failure to bring the best out of the latterly under-achieving Tom Huddlestone proved detrimental. Despite presiding over one league win – at home against Southampton – since late summer, Phelan’s Hull often played attractive, passing football while also securing an EFL Cup semi-final against Manchester United.

 

Hull’s best players are not happy

 

Robert Snodgrass – or more specifically his richly gifted left foot – is the overrriding reason why Hull remain within touching distance of safety. After recovering from a career-threatening knee injury, the Scotland winger has been outstanding this season but knows he is coveted by a clutch of clubs, including Newcastle. Disillusioned by events on and off the field at Hull, he declined to sign a lengthy new contract and would have had only six months left on his remaining deal had the vice-chairman, Ehab Allam, not automatically triggered a clause facilitating a one-year extension. The same thing has happened to Abel Hernández, Jake Livermore, Michael Dawson, Harry Maguire and Andrew Robertson, none of whom had been enthusiastic about voluntarily extending their agreements. As Snodgrass recently reflected: “There have been no proper negotiations, it’s not been the best. I’ll have to ask the chairman what’s going on.” Those words rather beg the question as to how he, and his team-mates, might respond to a new coach with strictly limited English. A leader off, as well as on, the pitch, the Glaswegian possesses a certain edge and does not suffer fools.

 

A new buyer is desperately needed

 

As the weeks have turned into months and no takeover materialised, the sense of stasis has become increasingly destabilising. Far too much is on hold. A potential end to the limbo beckoned last spring when Peter Grieve, an American businessman, seemed close to buying the Allams out and then, in August, Dai Yongge and Dai Xiu Li, a Chinese brother and sister, made a bid which subsequently foundered when they apparently failed the Premier League’s fit and proper owners test. Meanwhile Chien Lee, the owner of Nice, expressed interest in Hull before Greater China Professional Services Limited, advised by former Hull chairman Adam Pearson, filed documents to the Hong Kong stock exchange stating a prospective £130m deal had been provisionally agreed subject to satisfactory due diligence. That, though, was in October and the fact no exclusivity deal has since been signed indicates stalled progress. Indeed, with the club’s Premier League status seriously at risk, any takeover seems unlikely until relegation is either avoided or confirmed. Meanwhile, some Hull fans question precisely how serious the Allams are about selling up.

 

The atmosphere at the KCom is toxic

 

Before Phelan’s sacking and the courting of Silva, fans had planned a boycott of Saturday’s FA Cup third-round tie against Swansea at the KCom Stadium. With every stay-away supporter urged to give £12 to charity instead, that initiative was gaining momentum but may now be scuppered by curiosity at the new manager’s expected presence in the home dugout. Despite the team’s dismal record, fans have generally stayed behind the players and resisted turning on Phelan, but there have been increasing “Allams out” choruses. Such toxicity is exacerbated by a controversial new membership scheme abolishing concessions for children and pensioners. Resultant supporter anger was manifested when John Oxley, a local businessman, paid £2,500 to be a matchday sponsor for the 3-3 draw with Crystal Palace last month. Oxley used his on-pitch access before kick-off to unfurl a banner declaring: “Bring back concessions. Allams out” before being ejected by stewards.

 

The Guardian

[JC3]

Hoje tem já o primeiro teste frente ao Swansea. Duelo de equipas com novos treinadores.

[dragomir]

Do que tenho lido parece que se foi meter num buraco.

Espero que consiga os resultados que pretende

[Takezo]

Está numa boa liga para aplicar o seu super cross show.

[G1njas]

6 meses lá e depois FCP. E até acho que ele é capaz de fazer um bom trabalho,, dentro do possível, durante este período.

[Ricardo Pinto]

Foi se meter numa das piores equipas da premier league, e com um jogos complicadíssimos logo de início.

[Visitante]

Por acaso, do que tenho lido na imprensa inglesa, a situação está tão reconhecidamente má, que mesmo que ele não tenha sucesso por lá, é capaz de ser com a reputação incólume. Por isso, ter assinado pelo Hull, acaba por ser vantajoso para o Marco, dá-se a conhecer em Inglaterra e, se as coisas correrem bem, pode dar o salto para um clube com mais condições.

[Almeno]

Se conseguir implementar um futebol positivo (ou de agrado aos britânicos) safa-se bem mesmo não conseguindo a manutenção.

Editado 7 Janeiro 2017 por Almeno

[Visitante]

[UnReal]

A melhor das sortes para ele.

[UnReal]

Venceu 2-0. :)

[JC3]

Marco Silva 8-)

[Pickle Rick]

Espero que tenha todo o sucesso do mundo e se consiga dar bem por lá.

[Arrow]

Não gostei nada do futebol dele quando esteve no Sporting mas deu-me, com muito ou pouco mérito, uma das maiores alegrias que já tive enquanto sportinguista e só por isso desejo lhe a maior das sortes. Ainda faz uma gracinha.

[End]

Agora vai ter um ciclo complicado mas, acredito que vai manter o Hull na EPL. E também acredito que vá buscar pelo menos um central ou dois.

Editado 8 Janeiro 2017 por End

[Lebohang]

Exclusive - Marco Silva: 'People should have done their homework on me'

 

[Fajo]

Está a ganhar uma dimensão muito interessante na EPL. Mesmo que consiga a manutenção, vai dar o salto para outro clube de lá. Fala-se no West Ham, o que era excelente.

[Lebohang]

Citação do jornal "O Jogo" online

Clubes posicionam-se para lutar por Marco Silva. E são já quatro

Marco Silva poderá ser um dos alvos mais cobiçados este verão no mercado de transferências de treinadores em Inglaterra.

Segundo a imprensa britânica desta quinta-feira, Watford, Southampton e West Ham gostavam de contar com os serviços de Marco Silva, cujo contrato com o Hull City termina no final da temporada. Os três clubes, recorde-se, competem na Premier League.

Ao clube do treinador português, que é atualmente 17º classificado da Premier League, também lhe interessa segurar o treinador de 39 anos que chegou em janeiro e parece estar a ajudar a encaminhar o Hull para o "milagre" da manutenção.

O ex-treinador do Sporting está, entretanto, focado em garantir a permanência do Hull City na Premier League e, caso o consiga, deverá mesmo tornar-se na grande a disputa entre os clubes da principal divisão inglesa que procuram mudar de treinador para a próxima temporada.

[Modulor]

Southampton era super interessante para o Marco! Merecia. West Ham também era simpático, e adorava que levasse uma volta, mas parece sempre um clube mais denorteado e propenso a falhanços.

[Gonzalo Teixeira]

Acho que o Southampton seria o clube mais interessante para ele.

 

E podia reencontrar o Cédric dos 1000 e 1 cruzamentos :mrgreen:

[Mesut Ozil]

O Bilic vai bazar?

[Enzo Dios Perez]

O Southampton é uma equipa mais regular e andam sempre ali pela metade superior da tabela mas não sei se o West Ham não será uma equipa com mais potencial. Gostava de vê-lo numa dessas duas, no Watford já nem tanto.