The Tigers have gone to Turkey to enjoy some warm weather training during the latest break
Hull City flew out to Turkey on Monday ready to begin a week-long training camp in Turkey as Tim Walter takes advantage of the latest international break.
Saturday’s 4-0 loss at Norwich City saw the Tigers sign off their latest batch of Championship games with their heaviest defeat of the fledgling campaign so far, and over the next five days, the Tigers will be based in Antalya, one of their favourite haunts, to prepare for a mouthwatering run of games into the next break and then towards Christmas.
City’s squad will be training throughout the week with a game pencilled in for Wednesday before flying back to England on Saturday, and boss Tim Walter is keen to use the trip like a pre-season camp, given his squad is markedly different from the one that spent 10 days in Istanbul back in early July.
Since their last trip to the home country of owner Acun Ilicali, City have signed an astonishing 16 new players and 13 of those will be keen to use the trip to help further build relationships that will be absolutely crucial as the season wears on – the only players missing are Kasey Palmer, Liam Millar and Oscar Zambrano, all of whom are away on international duty with Jamaica, Canada and Ecuador respectively.
Not only will the players be put through double sessions in the 30c-plus heat, Walter will put significant emphasis on team building, and enjoying their resort, with the aim of helping to integrate all those new players and further imprinting his philosophy on the group.
“First of all, we want to do a kind of another pre-season camp, and especially to get to know each other a bit more and do things around the pitch and off the pitch,” he said. “We will also do a lot of work on the pitch, and the rest we will see.”
Despite Saturday’s convincing loss at Carrow Road, Walter says spirit remains high in the camp after notching three successive victories prior to the weekend’s reality check.
“We’ll try to keep our heads high because we had three in a row, unfortunately, the fourth, we lost 4-0 and that’s the way it works sometimes. The last few weeks were really good and we have to accept it, it’s not easy for today but tomorrow we will keep our heads up high.”