No identity crisis for Hull City under Liam Rosenior as Marco Silva makes return

The good news for Hull City is that in Liam Rosenior he sees a coach with the same clear-minded principles as Marco Silva, and he is teaching Oscar Estupinan to be more like Fulham's prolific goalscorer Aleksandar Mitrovic.

With Silva expected to rest key players for Saturday's FA Cup third-round tie, there may not be a direct comparison of the strikers, but the Tigers coaches past and present will go head to head.

The foundations Rosenior laid in November and reinforced during the World Cup are only now being built on, with wins at Birmingham City and Wigan Athletic. But right from the start Seri saw similarities with Silva, who he remains in contact with having won last season's Championship together at Fulham.

"Everything they do is for a reason," he explains. "When you do something for a reason you get your identity. Especially in the Championship a lot of teams just play to score and don't think about details.

"Why did we (Fulham) get promoted last year as champions? We had identity, we knew where we were going.

"The gaffer told us if we have our identity, our shape, if we are more organised, we are going to win a lot of games. I'm not saying Shota (Arveladze) isn't a good manager but before we were not organised.

"It can take a long time, depending on what type of player you have in the squad. Some players just want to play. When information becomes too much for them, they lose their focus. Some teams have more boys who are focused on where you want to go, what you want to do."

You might think details were a bit too boring for the languid midfielder with dyed hair and an eye for the clever pass who Rosenior says "can play football in a pipe and slippers."

Too many of last summer's signings seem to just want to play but as many have been relegated to the bench under Rosenior, Seri has been at the heart of the team.

"Even in my life I like details," he insists. "I like things organised in my home, I like things clean and good so everything is in the right place. I like it when things makes sense to me."

What Rosenior targeted from Seri goes beyond his gifts with the ball.

"If you want people to listen to you, you have to show you are a leader on the pitch who can make them better," argues Seri. "When I arrived I said, 'I'm not the guy who's going to shout but I'm going to try to make the people around me play better by giving confidence to them.'

"When Liam arrived, he said, 'You're very important to me. You have to lead this team by the way you play. I'll put a lot of things around you to make you comfortable.'

"He told me I have to work hard – extra, to be fit. If you're not fit, you cannot give him full confidence."

Mitrovic scored a ridiculous 43 Fulham goals last season and unlike earlier in his career, has taken it into the Premier League, where only Erling Haaland, Harry Kane and Ivan Toney have outscored him.

Seri sees similar attributes in 26-year-old Estupinan but again the devil lies in the detail.

"Oscar comes from South America and some of them don't get a real formation when they are young so when they come to Europe they have to start that," he argues.

"Oscar can score a lot of goals, but he has to learn the basics. When the ball is on the left he has to know if the left-back or left winger wants to cross to run to the near post."

What was beautiful about his third goal in as many games was its ugliness, a scuffed shot deflecting in.

"He said he got lucky," revealed Rosenior. "It's not lucky."

It was the sort of goal Seri had been asking for.

"I said if you only score great goals, you will not score a lot," he recalls. "You can score lucky goals. It's okay to score goals like that.

"But if you don't, when we start losing, you won't score goals. After his good start (seven goals in August), he stopped scoring and said, 'You were right.'

"His goal against Birmingham (running across for a near-post tap-in), that's what we want. We don't ask him to (drop deep and) play with us, stay in the box, go to the near or far post but be clever. Mitrovic scored 43 goals (last season) because he is clever.

"Oscar's working hard and wants to learn. I told him, 'I know you're a good header and I have the capacity to put the ball on your head so when I have the ball try to get closer to the keeper so I can cross for you.'

"I played with Mitro for a long time so I knew when I was in the middle third he wanted it to feet, when I was out wide, he wanted a curved ball. I'm learning these kind of things with Oscar."