Despite missing a host of players, City’s squad will be boosted on Good Friday
Barry Cooper Hull City correspondent
15:19, 02 Apr 2026
Charlie Hughes was sent off in the 3-0 loss at West Brom last month (Image: Stuart Leggett/MI News/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
Hull City will return to Championship action after a two-week break, boosted by the return of two key players in time for Friday’s trip to struggling Oxford United, and some good news on the horizon.
Both Lewie Coyle and Charlie Hughes missed the win over Sheffield Wednesday before the international break, but will be back in the squad for the first of two huge games over the pivotal Easter weekend.
Though he was named on the bench against the Owls, skipper Coyle had been nursing an ankle injury, so didn’t get on the pitch, while Hughes served a one-match ban for his dismissal at West Brom the weekend before.
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Both are expected to come straight back into the starting XI at the Kassam Stadium, but Regan Slater won’t join them after Sergej Jakirovic confirmed the influential midfielder will be out for a month after aggravating an ankle injury against the Owls.
Despite returning from international duty early with knocks, Paddy McNair and Semi Ajayi have both been able to train and will be in the squad, while Amir Hadziahmetovic, Lewis Koumas, Liam Millar and Ivor Pandur are expected to feature despite busy weeks away with their countries.
Pandur, Millar and Hadziahmetovic have all jetted back into London and will meet the rest of the squad at the hotel on Thursday evening. Hadziahmetovic was given an extra day to celebrate Bosnia and Herzegovina’s World Cup play-off win over Italy, with more than 100,000 fans turning out in Sarajevo to celebrate on Wednesday.
City will still be without Ryan Giles, Matty Jacob, Eliot Matazo, Yu Hirakawa, Darko Gyabi and Akin Famewo for the Good Friday meeting with the U’s.
Gyabi and Jacob are closing in on returns to first-team training, while it’s hoped Giles could feature against Birmingham City later this month. Hirakawa is also making swift progress in his recovery from an ankle issue and could also return against the Blues on April 18, which is ahead of schedule and a major boost.
“I’m worried about jet lag (for Pandur and Millar). They arrived today (Thursday) and will meet us at the hotel in Oxford,” he told Hull Live when updating on his squad.
“For Semi, we agreed that he will play in the first game and then he will come back, so everything is perfect. Paddy has some discomfort in his hip, so they (Northern Ireland) also released him to go home, and now he’s good. He trained normally on Tuesday and today.
“Our prediction for Regan (Slater) is six weeks with this ankle. He’s walking around the training ground with the coffee. I said to him: ‘You must find a nice park, a big park that you can walk around in.’ He feels fine, so we will see. Maybe it will be five weeks; we are going day by day. It’s five weeks from the injury, so he could be back for Charlton or Norwich.
“Matty Jacob started training with the group on Tuesday, but he needs time. Ryan Giles, we will be expecting him for Birmingham, maybe a little bit earlier, but we will see, and Darko is with us. He’s started to train with us. His medical check in London was OK, so everything is by the plan. This weekend is too soon. Akin (Famewo) is in individual training, and maybe next week he will be able to train with the group.”
The international break gave Jakirovic, his staff and players a chance to get away for a spell, with him returning to Croatia and other players jetting off on short holidays. After returning on Monday, the Croatian was impressed with the training since.
“It was very nice, almost eight days at home,” Jakirovic said of the international break. “I had a lot of things to do there because I was not around for four months. It was very good mentally for sure, and I watched the international games. It was great to see Bosnia and Herzegovina qualify. It was an historical moment after 12 years. We now have Amir, who I was told is the first Hull City player for 20 or 30 years to go to the World Cup. It’s a great achievement.
“We’ve done some good training sessions this week, the lads are good. They’ve had a good rest and we are ready to go for the final seven games.
“Oxford are a very big team, I think they have seven players over 6ft. If we control set pieces, then we have a lot of chances to take something, and we must be very, very constrained and focused in these situations. This week, we have prepared for everything that we can expect there. They are a very tough opponent. They are playing with a lot of challenges for second balls, and as I mentioned, set pieces. We are expecting, of course, a difficult game, but we are looking at ourselves, and we will try to take something there.”
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