Acun Ilicali's stance on Hull City goalkeeper risks making Tim Walter's job trickier - Stuart Rayner

Because the Tigers' goalkeeping situation could force him to go against the wishes of chairman Acun Ilicali.

The sales of Ryan Allsop and Matt Ingram to Birmingham City and Oxford United respectively have left Ivor Pandur, Thimothee Lo-Tutala and Harvey Cartwright as the "senior" goalkeepers. And "senior" is stretching it.

Between them, the trio have made two starts for Hull, Cartwright’s Football League Trophy game debut 2020 and a Championship appearance when Ingram picked up an injury in February 2022.

Pandur played senior football for Verona and Fortuna Sittard before joining in January, but not much. Lo-Tutala impressed across 20 matches on loan at League Two Doncaster Rovers in the second half of last season.

So it would be a dereliction of duty were an experienced goalkeeper not on the Tigers' long shopping list as they look to rebuild a squad which narrowly missed last season's Championship play-offs.

Ex-Rotherham United loanee Marek Rodak was the top target after being released by Fulham, but is on lots of other wishlists too.

But Walter has been backed into a potentially difficult corner by the chairman's public views on Pandur.

The official line is that Walter is the boss, Walter picks the team, Ilicali has only ever offered advice. But there will only be one way to find out for sure, and it will take a courageous man to do it.

His predecessor Liam Rosenior always maintained that not only was the input of Turkish media mogul and football fanatic Ilicali not a hindrance, he welcomed it. He claimed he actively sought Ilicali's advice on non-footballing issues too.

But when Rosenior was sacked at the end of his first full season, Ilicali's laudable desire to be transparent with supporters brought into the open the arguments the pair had behind the scenes over Pandur.

Like just about all top clubs in 2024, Hull's coach does not sign players, a recruitment team does. Lee Darnbrough was its head until leaving for Stoke City in April. Ilicali said in June the club planned to replace him but as yet, they have not.

The process remains the same. Whenever the "football brain team", as Ilicali calls it, makes a recommendation, the chairman personally pores over videos. If he approves, it goes to the coach for the yea or nay.

"The last one to decide is the coach," Ilicali always likes to stress.

So presumably it was only after the thumbs up from Rosenior that Pandur was bought from Sittard for £1.5m in the winter, yet in May Ilicali told members his coach did not feel the Croatian was ready to play in Championship when the chairman was pushing for Allsop to make way.

Since then, Rosenior has been sacked, Allsop has been sold and Pandur has been the first-choice goalkeeper in pre-season.

None of those things happened purely as a result of a disagreement between coach and chairman but it surely played some part in undermining Ilicali's confidence in Rosenior and all parties feeling it was time for Allsop to move on.

When Walter was unveiled to the media in June, Ilicali casually mentioned 24-year-old Pandur was "going to be our No 1 goalkeeper" before returning to the subject later.

"I want our fans to understand something very clearly," he clarified. "Pandur played in the Dutch league for two seasons, all the games, and was so successful.

"The Dutch premier league is on the same level as the Championship.

"We are talking about an under-21 Croatian international who had two very successful seasons in the Dutch league.

"When we brought him I didn't say to Liam one time he should play. I never, never said, 'Liam, play Pandur.' No.

"I imagined he is our first choice but who is the best will play. It's always the coach's decision and the coach's responsibility."

Very few overseas goalkeepers, let alone inexperienced ones, adapt immediately to the rugged, cross-heavy football played in England. It has made mugs of many who went on to be excel here.

Six months in, Pandur still looks raw in Hull’s lurid pink goalkeeping kit, prone to mistakes, not the most commanding, very happy with the ball at his feet, but not incisive in his passing. He will almost certainly get better but Hull loaned Lo-Tutala – a promising young goalkeeper signed with no first-team experience – to Stevenage, then Doncaster to make his early mistakes for someone else.

With the best will in the world, it is hard to see Pandur enduring the unrelenting slog of a Championship season without needing to be taken out of the firing line at some point. Watching from the sidelines as an older head shows him the way might be better still.

But when Walter has to make that call, how much will the words of his boss echo around his head? What impact will they make, consciously or subconsciously?

Walter did not develop his fluid, front-footed brand of football by bowing to the first sign of uneasy resistance.

Blocking out fan and media scepticism is one thing, ignoring your billionaire boss who has dished out P45s to two of your predecessors in less than two years requires far more bravery.