The season had not even started and when it seemed as though the white flag was being raised above the KCOM Stadium. Was it, their caretaker manager was asked, possible for Hull City to compete in the Premier League? "I would say no, simply because of the injuries," replied Mike Phelan.
Nine days later, Hull, a side some suggested could come to rank among the worst in top-flight history, secured a second successive victory to become the unlikely members of an elite quartet with a 100 per cent record this season: Chelsea, Manchester United, Manchester City and a very different City. Hull have no first-team signings, just 13 senior players because of the injuries Phelan cited and a host of unknowns on the bench.
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They have won away at Swansea City and beaten the champions. Leicester City highlighted the Premier League’s capacity to generate shocks; Hull have been this season’s prime example.
Results and performances suggest Phelan’s words were a cunning bluff. He is, after all, the man who spent 14 years on the coaching staff of the master of mind games, Alex Ferguson. Instead, he was probably just being disarmingly honest. The resolutely unglamorous Phelan can seem the only ordinary man in the distinctly abnormal world of Premier League management. Perhaps that ordinariness counted against him. Others of Ferguson’s right-hand men – Carlos Queiroz, Steve McClaren, Brian Kidd and Rene Meulensteen – acquired such reputations as coaches that they were granted high-profile managerial jobs in their own right.
Phelan did not. He became an itinerant assistant, in charge by default when Steve Bruce resigned, tiring of Hull’s inability to sign anyone as takeover talk seemed to go nowhere.
Sometimes, however, ordinary men do extraordinary things. Hull's start has catapulted Phelan into the status of saviour. Their supporters called on Saturday for his permanent appointment, chorusing: "We want Phelan in." He is rubbing shoulders with Jose Mourinho, Pep Guardiola and Antonio Conte at the summit of the Premier League. He is an overnight sensation at 53.
Perhaps time will illustrate why Phelan has never been offered a managerial job before now. So far, however, he has excelled. At United, he was an affable figure who was the bridge between Ferguson and dressing room. At Hull, his likeability appears an asset in galvanising a depleted group who could easily have been demoralised.
While other managers have a surfeit of choices, Phelan has a shortage. Thus far, it has worked to his advantage. Players have been assured of a place. They have had to assume responsibility. They have done so. Most of his counterparts have made their full quota of six substitutions so far. Phelan has made just one, bringing on Shaun Maloney, the sole experienced outfield player he has held in reserve, at Swansea. The Scot duly scored. The manager has a 100 per cent record with his changes.
Phelan has rebranded players, not out of ideological invention, as Guardiola would, but practically and pragmatically, because of necessity. He only had one fit centre-back, so midfielder Jake Livermore has had to partner captain Curtis Davies. Livermore’s move left him with just two central midfielders so Sam Clucas has been converted from a left winger to fill the void, using his fine touch and ability to read the game to appear an intelligent passer. Hull’s footballers have shown an uncomplaining adaptability.
Perhaps Phelan has been helped by possessing a core who were underestimated. Hull underachieved in going down two years ago. Bruce kept most of his key players. In Davies, Livermore, full-backs Andrew Robertson and Ahmed Elmohamady, midfielder Tom Huddlestone and striker Abel Hernandez, Hull have a group capable of playing Premier League football. In Robert Snodgrass, they have a creator desperately trying to make up for lost time after missing virtually all of their relegation season with a serious knee injury.
But they still have much the smallest and weakest squad in the world’s most demanding division. They entered it via the back door, as play-off final winners, and they are the only side not to have bought a first-team player. Yet once again they have that precious commodity, hope. For that, and much else, Phelan deserves credit.
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