Dowie ready for battle and targets long-term Tigers stint
The 45-year-old was unveiled yesterday as the successor to Phil Brown, who was sacked on Monday with the Tigers second from bottom of the league following last weekend’s injury-time defeat by Arsenal.
It marks a return to the game for the former QPR and Crystal Palace manager for the first time since he assisted Alan Shearer at Newcastle in their ultimately unsuccessful fight against relegation last season.
Dowie has just nine games left to preserve top-flight status, starting with a visit to Portsmouth – who are all but relegated after being deducted nine points yesterday for going into administration – but he insists he is not just in it for the short haul.
He said: “I’d like to see my future here for the long term. It’s about me producing results – that is the game we are in.”
The former Northern Ireland international will take his first training session today and he is already impressed by what he has seen.
“It’s a squad that has been put together over a couple of years,” Dowie added. “There are lots of attributes to it. I think it’s getting the best out of them.
While he denied having once made an alleged slur about Hull, Dowie admitted he had previously turned down the Tigers job before Brown took over because of the budget on offer. “Me and Adam did have a brief opportunity to work together but Adam as always was very tight with the purse strings then. It didn’t quite come off,” he added.
While Pearson described his new manager as someone with “great passion, integrity and honesty”, he admitted the appointment was something of a gamble given Hull’s precarious position.
“It’s definitely a gamble,” Pearson continued. Everything in football is a risk to some degree but we’ve won six games out of 51.
“We haven’t won away from home for over a year, we’ve conceded 100 goals in 50 games, we’ve lost our last four straight games. If we didn’t take a gamble, we’d be relegated.”
Pearson, who expects caretaker boss Brian Horton to leave, revealed: “We had three choices (of candidate) – we went into that with an open mind across all three.
“The advantage with Iain? Instantly on the pitch, operational now, and a point to prove – I am delighted he’s here.
“We’ve got nine games; we’ve picked nine games because within them we think there are six eminently winnable ones. We have to be confident because if we’re not then it won’t end successfully.”
Dowie refused to read too much into last week’s altercation between Jimmy Bullard and Nick Barmby although he was insistent on unity.
He continued: “Of course it is concerning, you don’t want discord in the camp, but you don’t want to over-read these things.
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