Hull City recruitment chief sheds light on summer business and January transfer plans
Hull City were one of the Championship’s busiest clubs throughout the summe
Hull City’s chief scout Stuart White believes Liam Rosenior has the strongest Tigers squad at his disposal of any manager in recent years, following a hectic summer transfer window at the MKM Stadium.
During the summer window, ambitious City made 10 first team signings along with Bora Aydinlik who arrived to link up with the club’s Under-21s. Arguably their most high-profile arrival was Jaden Philogene from Aston Villa in a deal thought to be worth in the region of £5m.
Philogene made his debut on Friday night in City’s 1-1 draw with Coventry City and played a role in the equalising goal along with two other summer arrivals, Tyler Morton from Liverpool and Aaron Connolly from Brighton.
On the outside, at least, deadline day was a busy affair with the club announcing four deals late on the Friday evening with Philogene, Aydinlik, Morton and James Furlong all seeing their moves announced to fans, but White says the day was a lot calmer than many would think.
“It was busy-ish, but to be fair, we were busy right the way through because deadline day itself was actually quite quiet. Things got over the line on deadline day, but a lot of the work had been done prior to that,” he told the Albion Analysis podcast. “Deals had been set up, players were in the offing for quite some time before they actually landed on that day, so it wasn’t just a manic final day of the window, things were in fact, quite quiet.
“Our organisation is a little bit broader than it had been in previous seasons, we’ve got a lot more staff, we have a more structured hierarchy now. Things were in the balance a little bit in terms of Jaden Philogene until right at the death for various reasons but that was still well-known to most people through the press that he was on his way in, so deadline day itself was not too manic.
“The whole window – I think we brought in 11 players in total – through different avenues, some British, some foreign, and I think overall, this is the strongest squad – when you’re a part of it, you look at it and think there are holes here and there – but looking at it holistically, this is the strongest squad we’ve had in a few years.
