Hull City head coach Liam Rosenior says signing Noah Ohio on a permanent basis is very much a consideration going into what will be another summer of big change at the MKM Stadium. City are gunning for promotion to the Premier League but suffered a major blow to those hopes with a 2-0 home defeat to Stoke City on Friday afternoon.
The Dutch Under-21 international had only played 95 minutes of Championship football since arriving in the final week of the January transfer window from Standard Liege in Belgium, and though he scored the winning goal off the bench in City’s 2-1 win at Rotherham United in early February, opportunities have been limited since, before he was handed a first start against Stoke playing 71 minutes before coming off.
Even though Ohio is just 21 years old, Rosenior has made it clear that both the team and the player are working extremely hard on the training field to prepare him for the championship and help him grasp what it takes to succeed in this City team.
“One hundred per cent,” Rosenior told Hull Live when asked if the club would consider making a permanent move. “We’ve got to see how we (develop him). We give him so much information in terms of the way that we play, where players need to stand on the throw-in, what the different angles of press that they need to make in the game.
“There’s so many like things that I can’t speak about because the fans will get bored of, but actually, what makes the difference to a game and Noah needs work on that.
“It’s clear to me and the staff that he can get better and he can improve and that’s what we’re analysing him for as well. Can he do that in the time that he’s here? Because whether in the Premier League or the Championship, he’s got outstanding athleticism, outstanding pace, he can finish, but he needs to add other things to his game which is natural at his age.”
On the subject of his debut on Good Friday, Rosenior said: “I thought it was a positive debut. I thought for a young striker,he’s physical, he’s quick, he held the ball up really, really well at times, gave us a different way. We could be a little bit more progressive from our build and be a little bit more high tempo, but the other thing, that’s his first start, you know, and people say, ‘why don’t you start him earlier’, you can see on 65 minutes he was absolutely blowing up.
“You know that’s not his fault. He’s trying to build his fitness, so for me, it was a positive debut in terms of a full debut from him. He doesn’t need to overthink it and we’ll make the right decisions moving forward or hopefully the correct decisions moving forward, about how we can score more goals.”
