Hull City v Bristol City: Fryatt hopes to play his part by helping nudge Hull over the line

Not only has the Tigers manager, at various stages, been denied the use of three key players through injuries to that particular part of the body, but a host of post-match inquests have also been dominated by his belief that the club suffers from an ‘Achilles heel’, namely an inability to kill teams off when on top.

This profligacy in front of goal is perhaps best illustrated by Hull being on course to become the first team promoted automatically from the Championship this millennium with a top scorer whose tally can be counted in single figures.

Robert Koren, already a doubt for the trip to Barnsley on the penultimate weekend with the calf injury that forced the Hull captain out of Tuesday’s defeat at Wolves, has nine to his name, one more than Sone Aluko and three ahead of Hull’s next highest scorer, Jay Simpson.

Considering Ricky Lambert found the net 27 times last season for Southampton and the likes of Sylvan Ebanks-Blake, Kevin Phillips, Shaun Goater and Nathan Ellington have all notched 20-plus en route to winning promotion since 2000, it is a remarkable statistic and one that can be put down to the freak coincidence that has seen the campaign of both Aluko and Matty Fryatt wrecked by Achilles problems.

In Aluko’s case, this has meant the last three months being spent on the sidelines, while for Fryatt the frustration has been even greater with his only start having come way back in August when Hull edged out Rotherham United in the Capital One Cup first round.

“From a personal point of view, it hasn’t been good,” says Fryatt, who netted 16 goals last term to finish as Hull’s top scorer.

“But from the club point of view, we couldn’t ask for any more. And the main thing is that we may be one game away from the Premier League.

“If someone had told me last summer that I’d be injured all season but the club would be on the verge of automatic promotion, then I would have taken that.”

Such an unselfish attitude is to Fryatt’s credit. It is also an indication of the togetherness that exists among the Tigers’ squad as they close in on a return to the top flight because, as the striker is the first to admit, his season has been a tough one.

“I had a broken jaw once, but was only out for two months with that,” said the striker, who has come off the bench in Hull’s last two games. “So this has been my first bad injury.

“People think I did the injury against Rotherham, but that wasn’t the case. I’d not been right in pre-season and then I got a kick to the back of my Achilles in training on the Thursday before Rotherham.

“On the Friday, I was thinking, ‘I don’t feel right here’. But I wanted to play because it was the first game of the season and a new manager had come in.

“The first half went okay, but then, after an hour, I was in bits. I could hardly walk, but the problem was we’d already made three subs so I limped through.

“Extra time was agony and when it got to my turn in the penalty shoot-out, I was struggling to walk as far as the spot. Then, (after Hull had won), the gaffer came in and said, ‘You don’t look fit’.

“I was thinking, ‘I’m not’. He then said the reason was probably because I hadn’t done a pre-season. But I knew, deep down, that it couldn’t be because of that.”

Despite his misgivings, Fryatt continued to train but, as the Championship season kicked off, the discomfort refused to go away.

The striker recalls: “I remember telling people in August, ‘I’ll be two to three weeks’.

“But I never got any closer. Even by November, I couldn’t get near anyone in training without being in agony. Rest and injections became my routine, and eventually months and months had gone by. That was the frustrating bit, not knowing what was wrong.”

Eventually, one of Fryatt’s many trips to London to be assessed by medical experts brought a diagnosis: the plantaris muscle in his Achilles had become detached.

“I’m a bit of an expert on the plantaris now,” says the Hull forward with a wry smile.

“It is like a big worm, which runs all the way from your heel through to the knee. Mine had come away and was hanging in the wind. The doctors said they had never seen anything like it.

“Mind, I didn’t want surgery because I wanted to play. I wanted to keep going with the injections, which were – looking back – basically miracle injections. If they had healed the injury, it would have been like I’d been touched by God.”

Fryatt finally went under the surgeon’s knife in November, but it was not until the New Year that the first hint came that his season may not be over after all.

“Suddenly, I was being beasted (by the physio staff),” he said. “They gave me all these schedules and test dates. Until then, I didn’t think I’d be back – other than maybe for a minute against Cardiff.”

Instead, Fryatt returned to full training in late February. His first run without pain was, the striker admits, a joyous occasion. The same goes for last Saturday’s late cameo at Ipswich Town from the bench, his first Championship action since April 28 last year.

“The reception I got against Ipswich was phenomenal,” he smiles. “It was really nice to know that people are still aware of who I was, and that I’d not been forgotten.

“Now, a goal would be the icing on the cake. I haven’t had a dream or a vision or anything like that. But it would be great to get a goal and help the lads over the line.”