Hull host Sunderland at the KC Stadium on Tuesday night with both teams looking to get back to winning ways after defeat last time out.
Steve Bruce’s Tigers lost out 1-0 at Stoke, while Sunderland’s visit to Manchester United ended in a 2-0 defeat. But with Sunderland not winning a game since January, Black Cats boss Gus Poyet will be keen to leave Humberside with a win. The Uruguayan manager was quoted as saying this week: There's a moment when you need to take your chances and win football games somehow and for us that time is right now. "We're going to play the best team to win the game."
The big news for Sunderland heading into this game is that Wes Brown’s suspension was overturned after a wrongful dismissal. The former Manchester United defender was sent off for supposedly fouling Falcao at Old Trafford on Saturday, however the red card has been rescinded.
Bruce in his pre-match press conference bemoaned his team’s lack of attacking prowess at Stoke on Saturday: “We didn’t do enough offensively,” said Bruce. “The one thing we’ve had to do in recent weeks is try and grind out results and it looked for long periods like we might do that again on Saturday because we frustrated Stoke for long period.”
Recent history doesn’t bode well for Sunderland, who haven’t beaten Hull in four meetings with the Tigers, with their last win being a 1-0 victory at the KC Stadium in April 2010. Of course Sunderland were one of the scalps Hull claimed along the way to their first ever FA Cup final at Wembley last season, with a 3-0 win for the Tigers.
Hull will also be looking to complete the double over Sunderland for the first time since 1990. After their 3-1 Boxing Day win over the Black Cats, Bruce will be hoping to mastermind another victory over his former side. Sunderland’s last league win came on January 31 against Burnley, since then it’s been a series of lows for Poyet’s side, losing two and drawing two, as well as crashing out of the FA Cup to Bradford.
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Hull should be able to call on Nikica Jelavic after the Croatian sat out Saturday’s defeat with a little problem in his knee: “We hope that Jelavic’s knee will be okay. He wasn’t able to train on Friday and we couldn’t really risk him with what we’ve got ahead of us,” Hull boss Steve Bruce said. However Robbie Brady may well be out for the season with a calf problem: “Robbie Brady pulled up with a horrible calf injury late in training on Friday. It could be weeks or months for him, we won’t know until the scan results come back.”
Mohamed Diame is still on the comeback trail following his knee problem which has ruled him out for three months. He joins James Chester (shoulder), Liam Rosenior (hamstring) and Robert Snodgrass (knee) on the sidelines. New signing Dame N’Doye may sit out the game after being back in Russia finalising all the issues he’s had in moving from Moscow to Humberside.
Gus Poyet may be able to call on Jack Rodwell and Ricky Alvarez after recovering from injury knocks. Rodwell returns after a groin problem while on-loan Alvarez is 50/50 for the game with Poyet set to check his fitness closer to kick-off. Emanuele Giaccherini is likely to be out for some time after an ankle issue continues to plague the promising player.
With both sides needing to grab a win to stay clear of the bottom three, there could be a very scrappy game on Humberside on Tuesday evening. Hull need Jelavic and possibly N’Doye to continue their rich veins of form while Sunderland need to regain their composure and try to remember what winning a game feels like.