Hull City manager Steve Bruce must be bemoaning his luck after yet another player was injured as James Chester came off with a suspected dislocated shoulder in the first half of Hull's demoralising defeat in the capital.
Bruce confirmed the injury post match, "Unfortunately Chester has disloacated his shoulder, we are awaiting X-rays." It's not yet known how long the Welsh defender will be out for but Bruce didn't sound too optimistic. "At this early stage it looks like he probably needs an operation." He then went on to acknowledge that his name is added to an already long list of names on the injury list.
"It adds to the list of injuries which is unfortunate for us at the minute." Chester joins Abel Hernandez, Nikica Jelavic, Mohamed Diame, Andy Robertson, Liam Rosenior and Robert Snodgrass on the injury list and means Hull will have a very depleted squad for the visit of Newcastle next week.
In terms of bringing in reinforcements for Jelavic and Hernandez, Bruce denied making a bid for Blackburn's Rudy Gestede, who's been heavily linked with The Tigers this week. I have never made a bid (for Gestede). "I don't know where all the nonsense has come from. I can confirm there's no way we have bid £4.5m and we won't be doing so."
When asked about the possibility of the new assistant manager being confirmed, Bruce said he wasn't "close, but I've got two or three people to see this week," before adding: "We should know more about that by the end of next week." Rumours were circulating this week that Paul Jewell, the former Derby and Ipswich boss, was to become Bruce's assistant after he left West Brom this week.
Bruce was speaking after the 3-0 defeat, in which Andy Carroll, Morgan Amalfitano and Stewart Downing scored in the second half after the Hammers recovered from a poor first half. When asked about the game itself, Bruce said: "You've got to take your chances, we haven't taken them often enough." Hull's main attacking threat came from Sone Aluko, who had two good chances early on, and Bruce acknowledged this.
"We've got ourselves in wonderful positions and we should have been up after three or four minutes." He also went on to add: "We gifted West Ham their opportunities and they've taken them, it's become a reoccurence."
