Following Hull City’s 2-0 loss to Sheffield Wednesday on Tuesday evening, the club’s board have opted to sack manager Tim Walter.
The former Hamburger SV and VFB Stuttgart boss was hired by Hull City on May 31st, and his reign lasted all of six months.
It was never a good tenure for the club or manager as Hull fell into the relegation zone with the loss to Sheffield Wednesday.
After such a promising end to the 2023/2024 campaign, finishing in seventh, how did the Tigers get themselves to this point once again?
How It Happened
After the seventh place finish last season, Hull City’s chairman, Acun Ilicali, felt the finish was a failure on the shoulders of then manager Liam Rosenior.
The Turkishman promptly fired Rosenior much to the dismay and confusion of the Hull City fanbase as well as those who followed the Championship.
However, that rise seemingly didn’t matter as Ilicali felt the investment Hull City had made in the 2024 January transfer window was more than sufficient backing to make the playoffs.
With players such as Jaden Philogene, Liam Delap, and Fabio Carvalho all leaving the Tigers after the season, the new manager had a lot of work to do to make sure the squad was ready to meet expectations the next season.
Enter Tim Walter. The German had plenty of managing experience at various German clubs including VFB Stuttgart and even the Bayern Munich second team.
His previous two stops he was sacked after finishing third with Stuttgart and losing in the playoffs with Hamburger SV. To the Hull City board, these finishes showed Walter was capable of bringing a club the board viewed as on the brink of the playoffs to the next level.
The gruff German got right to work trying to improve the squad. There were a total of 21 departures, 16 of which were before the end of August.
Some of those departures included the likes of Ozan Tufan, Jacob Greaves, Ryan Allsop, Aaron Connolly, and Jacob Rushworth. To replace some of the talent lost, Abu Kamara, Ryan Giles, Cody Drameh, Kasey Palmer and Joao Pedro all arrived.
One of the things that was told to Hull City fans was that Walter would bring “heart attack football” to the club. Heart attack football was the name given to the attractive, aggressive style of play that promised tons of goals that Walter used in Germany.
Unfortunately, that was quickly found to not be a style of play that worked with the players at the club. Up to this point in the season, Hull City has only scored 16 total goals, which is the fourth fewest in the Championship.
Currently, Hull City are on a nine-game winless run that includes six of their eight losses on the season leading to the manager’s official exit.
A poor start to the season for Hull
Needless to say, it has not been the season the club or fans wanted or expected. It hasn’t helped there has been a rift between Walter and the fanbase.
Walter often challenged the fans and was not usually very welcoming to criticism of how he did things. This included Walter’s comments after the Sheffield Wednesday loss, when he was asked about the fans chanting he would be sacked…
“For me, (the abuse) it’s no problem. I can understand everything, but for the lads, it’s a problem. They can say what they like against me, it’s no problem.”
Previously Walter had said he wanted open conversation with the fans, not crying from the stands or social media. The sacking felt inevitable for some time, and unsurprisingly, the loss yesterday finally finished Walter’s time at the club
Tim Walter had a tumultuous time as Hull Coty manager and was surely also the victim of unduly high expectations.
If Hull City and Ilicali didn’t have these kinds of expectations, there is probably lots more patience extended Walter even despite his rough relationship with the fans.