The Tigers host play-off-chasing Bristol City looking for revenge their heavy Ashton Gate loss early in the season
Barry Cooper Hull City correspondent
15:15, 05 Feb 2026
New Hull City signing Toby Collyer
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New Hull City signing Toby Collyer(Image: Hull City AFC)
Manchester United loanee Toby Collyer is expected to make his first appearance in a Hull City squad on Saturday when the Tigers host Bristol City.
Collyer signed on loan from Old Trafford last week but hasn’t played in nine weeks owing to a calf injury. The 22-year-old midfielder has trained without any issues in the past week and is in line to appear against the Robins.
City, however, will be unable to call on Yu Hirakawa with him sitting the game out against his parent club under the terms of his loan agreement from the Ashton Gate club,
Akin Famewo remains a doubt with a knee problem picked up in the win at Deepdale last month, but Ryan Giles came through Tuesday night's draw with Watford without any issues and is pushing for a return to the starting line-up.
Cody Drameh is closing in on a return to the squad, though this weekend’s visit of Gerhard Struber's men will come too soon. The full-back is expected back in full training on Monday.
Elsewhere, Matt Crooks remains sidelined and isn't likely to return until the beginning of next month, and Mo Belloumi, Semi Ajayi, Eliot Matazo and Darko Gyabi are also out.
We don't expect any injuries leading up to the game. There's one we're waiting on. I get bored of saying it myself, but there's always niggles," assistant boss Dean Holden told Hull Live.
"Not even 48 hours on from the last game. The lads that started, a couple of them came out for some light activities (on Thursday). A lot of them stayed inside and made sure they got their recovery protocols bang on.
"We'll have a count up, you're never quite sure in a three-game week, but there were certainly no big headlines post-game in terms of injuries."
Famewo will continue to be assessed, but with Giles returning after a five-week lay-off in midweek, and Paddy McNair waiting to make his debut, numbers at the back are now well-stocked again.
"It's just been niggling away at him," he said of Famewo. "He's had to come off in a couple of games, at half-time and stuff, and early in the second half, I think at Blackburn, so it's something that he's managing.
"Gilo's (Ryan Giles) now hopefully coming back into the group as well. We've got Matty (Jacob), who did really well the other night against a tough opponent. We've got options, and Akin can fill in in a few positions, too."
Collyer has had to be patient for his chance, but that is likely to come this weekend, and with Sergej Jakirovic having concerns over the midfield unit, he could even be handed a start.
"He's been fantastic," Holden enthused about Collyer. "He's not played a lot of football, has he, in the last couple of months? He's looked really sharp in training.
"We've not really been able to do any sort of big pitch type stuff just for the nature of the games and the smaller groups that we've been working with, but I'm sure his time will come pretty soon.
"He's a fantastic young player. We're delighted to bring him to the club. You don't come through at Man United and get in their first team without having real quality, and he has got some top qualities, so another fantastic addition. The way he's trained, I think we'll see him in the squad on Saturday."
Drameh had been expected to be sidelined for around eight to 10 weeks with a quad injury, but he's back ahead of schedule.
"We're hoping he'll be joining the training group next week. He's been out with a small group this morning (Thursday), only doing the beginning part of the session, and then he went away and did some more conditioning work. The plan is to get him back into the training group, hopefully prior to the Chelsea game."
Matt Crooks continues his rehab from his hamstring issue, and remains a key figure off the field, says Holden.
"No real headlines in that in terms of the change in the timings, etc. He's moping around the training ground," Holden joked. "There's a great little dart school going on down there in the kit room, so he's still bringing a lot of value, as you'd expect to the group."
While David Akintola could yet move to the Turkish Super Lig before their window closes on Friday evening, he trained as normal on Thursday.
"I said to someone, I can never see him (Akintola), even if he's arguing with someone, he'd probably still do it with that big smile on his face.
"He's trained well this morning. There's a little bit of noise going on with the foreign windows, etc, but he's trained well today. He'll never be a minute's problem. He loves playing football, he loves being in the environment, and we'll see how that pans out."
While there may have been some frustration about dropping two points in midweek, City still moved closer to the top two and further away from seventh. Sitting third with 16 games to go remains an incredibly good position.
Holden admits City, though, cannot afford to take their eye off the ball, otherwise they'll come unstuck in such a brutal and unforgiving division.
"We are focusing on Bristol City," he continued. "I don't think we're good enough, I don't think we've got enough experience in the group as a whole to be thinking, 'Oh look where we are now'. You don't win anything until May and all that, it's so true.
"If we take our eyes off the ball now, football's got a nice way of just sticking one right on your forehead.
"We've been discussing at length yesterday (Wednesday) the game from Tuesday night, and we've gone through it with the players this morning.
"We've had an excellent session, with the non-starters, which again is another really good sign. The boys have been really sharp in that sort of hour, hour 20 on the grass.
We reconvene tomorrow (Friday) as a full group on the grass. We take on the challenge of Bristol City and then we put that to bed and then we move to Chelsea. That's what we've done all season, there's no, there's no way we're going to get away from that."
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