‘I’d rather have the points on the board’ insists Hull City boss Grant McCann

Grant McCann doesn’t plan on wasting any time worrying about what Hull City’s League One title rivals are doing, but has conceded that his players must use their midweek demolition of Wigan Athletic as a “springboard” for an improved run of form.
Hull City manager Grant McCann.Hull City manager Grant McCann.
Hull City manager Grant McCann.

The Tigers visit fellow promotion-hopefuls Doncaster Rovers this afternoon having ended a sequence of three games where they failed to score, let alone win, by smashing home five goals in midweek.

Wednesday’s result took them back up to second place in the table, though City’s failings in the weeks that preceded their emphatic victory over the Latics have significantly dented their hopes of securing an immediate bounce-back to the Championship.

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Thus, today’s clash with their Yorkshire rivals – four points further back in fifth position but boasting three games in hand – is one of real significance.

“Hopefully we can use the Wigan performance and result as a springboard and hopefully build off it,” said McCann.

“We’ve got to keep performing, keep getting results and keep backing results up with another good result.

“Every team is going to have blips.

“I’d rather have the points on the board, personally and we’ll just worry about our own performances and own results. Nobody else’s. We can’t affect anything else.

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“Teams are going to have to play these games [in hand] and they aren’t going to get a spare week. It’s going to be nip and tuck all the way.

“But, we’ve have just got to make sure we do our own job, that’s all we can do. We can only affect us, we can’t affect anything else that happens.”

Like Hull, Doncaster’s own recent form has been poor.

Following nine wins in 10 games, Darren Moore’s team have gone on to lose three on the spin.

McCann, however, expects all of the sides in the promotion race to suffer blips at some point between now and the end of the season, and doesn’t envisage his former club continuning to suffer defeats.

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“Doncaster are a good team and at any second their luck or their form can change, but we’re hoping it’s after we play them,” he added.

“Every team is gonna have ups and downs as the season goes on. I think we’ve seen that already. People have had blips, most teams at the top have had them. Maybe the only who haven’t are Lincoln, who have probably been the most consistent – and that’s why they’re top of the league.

“It’s happened to us on a couple of occasions but I thought we’ve responded well and I think the games coming so quickly gives you a chance to respond almost immediately.”

Victory today would move Hull seven points clear of Rovers, but McCann insists that it is consistency rather than league position that he’s most concerned about at this stage.

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“We’re okay, we’re fine where we are. We try not to look at the league table because there’s 17 games to go and so many points to play for,” he continued.

“It’s not about where you are with 17 to go it’s about where you are with two or three to go.

“We’ve just got to try and keep a bit of consistency about our performance levels because in time that’s gonna give us the best chance.”

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