Dean Windass issues honest Hull City message to Ruben Selles | OneFootball

There's no doubt that the new boss of the Tigers has his work cut out for him to get this team back in decent shape.

Dean Windass believes that Ruben Selles' only objective at Hull City this season should be to keep them from being relegated - a task that he said will be a "tough" one.

The highly anticipated appointment of the former Reading manager has brought a lot of hope to a club that has been flipped upside down in half-a-year.

At the end of the season, while Liam Rosenior was still in charge, Hull were ruing a missed opportunity after narrowly falling short of the top six. Now they are stone-dead last in the second tier.

Selles is no stranger to a tough job. He was tasked with saving Southampton from relegation a few seasons ago, which he failed to achieve. He did, however, help Reading avoid a second successive relegation last time out despite a number of point deductions.

Now he will have to conjure up another Houdini-like trick for the Tigers.

Dean Windass sets out Ruben Selles' Hull City target

Because of the position that the club are in, club legend Windass believes that staying up should be the only thing concerning Selles and his players now.

"(They're) bottom of the league; it's not looking great, at the minute," said Hull's former Wembley hero to ITV's Arif Ahmed. A new manager has come in now. Very tough ask, very tough ask after getting beat at the weekend as well. Bottom of the league now, rock bottom.

"We always say as footballers when you're at the bottom of the league at Christmastime it's a worrying time. You've got to start winning football matches very, very quickly.

"The manager has a great job on his hands, a very tough job. It's a great football club and the manager has a tough, tough job at the minute, and hopefully he can turn it around.

Windass is interested to see how Selles' Hull side differ from what Tim Walter was able to muster in his short time in the home dugout of the MKM Stadium, but he won't have a lot of time to work with his players given the yearly Christmas fixture congestion.

"When there's a lot of games you don't do a lot of training," Windass stated. "But the truth is he'll stamp his own authority on the team, on the system he wants to play. It'll be very interesting to see what system he'll play. From the last manager which didn't work, clearly didn't work, that's why the results have been (what they've been).

"But like I just said, depending on what system he does play, players have got to step up. Supporters go and pay a lot of money to go and watch football matches and they're not delivering at the minute. Hopefully they can turn it around."

He continued: "At the end of the day you've just got to stay in the Championship. That's his main objective now is to stay in the Championship.

"The first game will be a tough game for him, but, listen, at the end of the day you've just got to start winning football matches and stay in the Championship, and it's going to be a tough ask for him."

Hull City need an end-of-season club-wide reset

May does feel a long way away, especially given the current state of Hull's on-pitch affairs. The hope is that they won't be in the bottom three by the time the 46th and final game of the regular season is played, but the work shouldn't stop after that.

This season was made tough for them by the loss of Jacob Greaves, Jaden Philogene and others, but there has to be some form of inquiry into how the decisions to sack Rosenior, appoint Walter and sign certain players were made.

A club was on the edge of a play-off run and is now staring down the League One barrel. That doesn't happen without some pretty major gaffs. There's no question that mistakes have been made. Who made them is what needs to be determined.