Hull City v Norwich City: Killer Billy Sharp can provide Tigers' missing ingredient, says Regan Slater

The Championship table says the Tigers ought to beat Norwich City on Friday, and move back into the play-off positions ahead of the rest of the weekend games.

But too often this season, especially in recent weeks, Hull have outplayed teams without beating them.

The division's all-time top-scorer could be the man to can give them the eye of the tiger directly or, as he is a qualified coach, by passing on his knowledge to others.

"With Bill it's really interesting, he's not bothered how the ball goes in the net," says Slater, who played alongside Sharp at Sheffield United and is now car-sharing with the 37-year-old who could make a first start against the Canaries.

"Not only me but the lads like Az (Aaron Connolly) and Liam (Delap) who are young strikers and still learning could learn a lot from Billy.

"He's fitted straight in. He's already got the lads' respect as the leading scorer of the league we're in.

"I know what Bill's about and I feel like he's really good for us as a team. When we are in need of a goal I'm pretty sure Bill will be in the right areas to get that for us.

"He's really experienced and he's been in the game a long time. He says bits and pieces in the meeting room or on the field.

"He's really good for us to pick his brains because he's someone that's been there and done it a few times, getting promoted from this league."

So has Fabio Carvalho, who joined on loan from Liverpool on Wednesday. With injured players turning out to watch the former Fulham playmaker’s first training session, coach Liam Rosenior claimed Cottingham was “like a viewing gallery" for the day.

Slater was not fully on board with that, countering: "The names we're bringing in are not exactly nobodies, everyone's heard of them and seen them play before" but there is no doubt expectations in East Yorkshire are rising. Hull are not quite meeting them yet.

"The players know how frustrated I am at the moment that we haven't got more points from games we're in control of," says Rosenior. "I think the biggest thing for us now as a young team is to take that control and turn it into points because I think if I analyse the game we should probably have nine or 10 more points that we've let slip.

"I think it's just being honest and showing why. My biggest thing with the players is asking why did something happen?

"I've said to them this season we have to learn on the job. We can't learn from things that happened two seasons ago, we have to learn from something that happened two games ago and make sure it doesn't happen again.

"What I'm hoping for is that our progress peaks at the end of the season so all the experiences we have as a group lead us to something good. In order to do that we have to consistently feed back to the players with meetings, one-to-ones, clips, because we have to accelerate this process. I think that's the only way we can do it."