Character counts in Hull City's transfer market balancing act says Grant McCann

On top of ability, he has been very mindful of the character of players he has brought to East Yorkshire, having thoroughly vetted Gavin Whyte and Jordan Flores.

Having started his career at Crusaders in McCann's home city of Belfast, on-loan winger Whyte is a player the Hull coach is very familiar with. Midfielder Jordan Flores spent time at the Tigers' Cottingham training ground before joining from League of Ireland Dundalk as a free agent so McCann could suss out his personality.

But the problems caused by the pandemic mean there is no bottomless pit of money and anyway there are the constraints of the League One salary cap to work with, so the arrivals have been offset by the loan of Jordy De Wijs to Queens Park Rangers with a view to a permanent transfer and Bristol City recalling loanee Hakeeb Adelakun.

Others could yet move either way.

“What you've seen now is two out, two in with Hakeeb and Jody (going out), and Jordan and Gavin (coming in)," stressed McCann. "You have to be quite clever and cute because it is a balancing act in terms of the budget and how the salary cap affects club. It's getting that bit right and strengthening the areas we think can get better.

“There are areas where we feel we're strong and one or two players can move on.

“This is a season like no other. Anything can happen at any time and you can lose four or five players through no fault of your own really because we follow the protocols really strictly around the training ground and the stadium so it's important we have a strong squad, healthy competition and the right characters who understand that.

"Sometimes you can have 20 players and four of them rocking the boat because they're not playing. We don't have that here.

“We have players who all want to drive, push each other on on the training ground and get in the team. That's important to us.”

Whyte's seven League One goals for Oxford United in 2018-19 were important in persuading McCann to loan the 24-year-old from Cardiff City.

“He was excellent (at Oxford) for one season,” said McCann. “He knows the division.

“He was also part of a successful Cardiff team who just missed out on the Championship play-off final last season and played over 30 games. This season has been a little bit different for him, he hasn't played the games he would have liked – things like that happen in football.

“We're just delighted to get him. He's got real pace, real energy, a real appetite for the game, a real hunger about him and he's a good character.

“They're all the tools we like in a player so he'll fit in really well here.

“We've lost Akeeb, Tom (Eaves) has picked up an injury, Martin Samuelsen's injured at this present time so it was important we strengthened in that area and there's no better man to do that than Gavin Whyte, a player who has affected games at international level.

“Jordan is another player we've seen for the last year or so watching him progress in Dundalk. He's got the characteristics of that winning mentality, winning the league and the cup at Dundalk in the two seasons he's been there and scoring goal.

“We've had him in for ten days, maybe two weeks but it was cut short because of the Covid problems we had here at the training ground after the Portsmouth game. It wasn't to see what he was like as a footballer, but as a person. He'll fit in really well.

“He's got a very good passing range, good legs, he can get about people, he's aggressive, he has tenacity in his tackling and he can shoot, left foot and right foot. He brings a bit of balance to our midfield as a left footer so it's good competition.

“Character is No 1 (characteristic McCann looks for), I think that's really, really important.

“When you think back to the summer when I signed Richie Smallwood I spoke to Tony Mowbray and his first words to me were that he's a warrior and that's led on to people like Josh Emmanuel, Jones, Greg Docherty, the list goes on.

“Then it's the ability after that and what they can bring to the football team but that has to be No 1 for us. In my opinion that is what makes a really good dressing room.”

Hull are in a stand-off with Keane Lewis-Potter over a contract extension which means the forward has not started a game since November, but McCann has been assured if the forward leaves, he can dip into the market again.

“We're hoping to resolve that because we really want Keane to sign his contract and start playing for this football club (from the start again) but I've been assured by Ehab (Allam, the vice-chairman) if it's not the case we can strengthen that area.

“We owe it to these players, we owe it to the fans, we owe it to everybody to get out of this league as quickly as we can so we want to get stronger for sure.”

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