Forget Ismail Kartal - Hull City should keep it simple when appointing their next manager

A 2-0 defeat to Sheffield Wednesday on Tuesday was the final straw, but in practice the camel’s back had already been shattered – few on Humberside had any patience left for manager Tim Walter, who was sacked as Hull City manager on Wednesday following a nine-match winless run that left the club in the Championship relegation zone.

Former Hamburg head coach Walter was appointed after a season in which Hull had finished seventh, narrowly missing out on the play-offs, and promised the fans “heart attack football”, an exciting, gung-ho brand of the game which, he claimed, “nobody else in the world” could play. Instead, he ended up cutting an angsty, frustrated figure whose team struggled to score goals and often looked like they didn’t know how to play together as a cohesive unit.

Some part of the problem can, perhaps, be chalked up to the club’s transfer policy, and certainly Walter griped about that, just as he complained about the facilities and the fans “crying in the stands”. With key players such as Jacob Greaves and Jaden Philogene-Bidace leaving for the Premier League, Hull spent their profits and then some, bringing in no fewer than 17 new players at a total cost of around £34m. Few of the new faces have made a particularly positive impact so far.

All of this leaves Hull and their chairman Acun Ilicali casting around for a new coach who can not only turn things around on the pitch but also unite a disparate dressing room. There is time for the season to be salvaged and for relegation to be comfortably averted, at least, but the bar set by Walter’s predecessor Liam Rosenior has not been cleared and the mood in the stands of the MKM Stadium has turned rather toxic.

A few names have jumped to the top of the bookmakers’ lists already. Mark Robins, recently surprisingly sacked by Coventry City (much to the chagrin of many of their fans) is the betting favourite. Steve Cooper and Steven Schumacher aren’t far behind, and neither is Ismail Kartal, who has been linked with Hull before.

The 63-year-old Kartal was relieved of his duties as Fenerbahçe manager this summer despite leading the team to their record points total in the Turkish Süper Lig. Unfortunately for Kartal, who was in his third stint in charge of the side and seems to have coached half of the clubs in Turkey, even 99 points wasn’t enough to claim the title ahead of Galataşaray. When José Mourinho became available, Kartal was dispensed with.

Hull fans who might be wary of a retread of a Championship coach with mixed historical results – a description that could fairly be applied to each of Robins, Cooper and Schumacher, albeit to varying degrees – might well be tempted to tie an argument together for appointing Kartal, and certainly between his impressive win percentage last season and his vast wealth of experience there are some plus points.

His tactics, which lean heavily on overlapping wing-backs in attack, could suit Hull to an extent – between Lewie Coyle, Cody Drameh and Ryan Giles (who hasn’t had a great start at his new club but is a proven performer in the second tier), they have some strength at full-back that could line up well with the way Kartal likes to play the game.

There are several red flags to be waved, though. Despite winning a great many games at Fenerbahçe, there was also a considerable amount of criticism over his predictable style of play, lack of a Plan B, and a sense that winning the biggest games was beyond him, even if beating lesser sides which much weaker squads became a matter of routine.

More concerning, perhaps, is Kartal’s character. A fiery and abrasive man, his interviews can occasionally come across as polemics. Hull have a dressing room full of strangers who don’t appear to have reacted well to Walter’s grousing, and Kartal has a fair bit in common with the Tigers’ outgoing head coach in terms of his public persona.

Hull’s board are clearly desperate for the team to play attacking, entertaining football, but even the most free-flowing theoretical approach to football will come apart if morale in the squad is low. “Heart attack football” only functions when the team are willing to throw themselves whole-heartedly into the concept in the first place. Swapping one abrasive manager for another, as Kartal may potentially prove to be, would be an unorthodox way to achieve that buy-in.

Which is a long way of saying that looking past Robins, were he interested, would be a strange decision. Not only is his more easy-going nature probably better suited to the situation within the squad, but he has a track record of attacking, entertaining and successful football – and of turning a team around when they’re at a low ebb, as he did in taking Coventry City back to the second tier.

Robins’ Coventry were aggressive, almost always looking to score another rather than hoping to avoid conceding one, direct and generally easy on the eye. If Ilicali wants watching Hull to be an entertaining experience, he could do a lot worse than appointing a coach with a track record of playing fun and largely forward-thinking football in the Championship. He has the right experience, attributes and temperament to be a success.

Lining a manager up with any given squad isn’t an exact science - or at least if it is then the average viewer lacks many of the data points to predict how any particular coach might get on with a specific set of players – but playing the odds suggests that Robins seems like something close to the ideal candidate. Hull made a mistake in appointing Walter, and need to avoid making another now. Robins looks like the safest bet.