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Ever since he arrived at the end of the January window, Liverpool loanee Harry Wilson has been Hull City’s best attacker and arguably its best player, scoring five times and adding four assists in ten Championship appearances and helping to ensure the club’s survival in the second tier.
All told, Hull City have won five of the ten games Wilson has played in this season—which have also been the five games he’s scored a goal in—and just six of the 33 games he hasn’t been involved in. That they now stand nine points clear of the drop, then, owes a great deal to the young winger.
“I think he’ll be playing for Hull City in the Championship [next season], but that’s me being positive,” manager Nigel Adkins said when asked about whether the club can find a way to hold on to the 21-year-old for another season, though he doesn’t expect to know for certain for some time.
“The lads who have been on loan have done great but they’ll go back to their parent clubs and do their pre-season with them,” he noted. “They’ll decide if they’re going to stay in the first-team group or go and get match experience in the Championship, [and] I’d love that to be at Hull City.”
Wilson is one of four loanees getting minutes at Hull, along with three from Chelsea, but after taking the month of February to settle at his new club he’s clearly been the one most important to their improved returns and the one Adkins will be most keen to find a way to keep hold of.
He’s right, though, that Liverpool will want a closer look at Wilson in pre-season. And it’s not impossible to imagine the young winger finding a spot on the first team as a rotation option for Mohamed Salah and Sadio Mané, at least depending on who else the club sign over the summer.
Wilson is close to being able to fill such a role—his success at Hull, and the difference he’s made for them, proves that—but if there isn’t room for him to get at least rotational minutes at Liverpool, a return to Hull for the full 2018-19 season could suit all parties.