Hull City receives second Chelsea loan army reinforcement

Chelsea defender Michael Hector has joined Hull City on a season-long loan.

Hector has never had it easy in his career, and is all too familiar with the loan roulette. Playing his youth football for Millwall and then non-league side Thurrock, the 25-year-old joined Reading’s academy in 2009 and underwent eleven (11!) loan spells before becoming a mainstay in Reading’s first-team and eventually signing for Chelsea in the summer of 2015.

His first loan spell as a Chelsea player saw him spend another season at Reading and in his second (last season), he made the step up to the Bundesliga with Eintracht Frankfurt. Hector made 19 starts among 26 appearances in all competitions for the German side, including their DFB Pokal final against Borussia Dortmund. He had quite the rocky start to his life in Germany, being sent off in his first two starts for Eintracht and was even omitted from the squad in the middle of the season due to perceived attitude problems but bounced back from it all and provided a decent account of himself in the German top flight.

Hence, this move back to the Championship seems a step in the opposite direction but he’s likely to be playing week-in, week-out at this level. Hull City are still struggling to make up the numbers in their squad following their relegation from the Premier League but slowly and steadily have been making signings to improve their squad, including another Chelsea player, Ola Aina, on loan. Hector is currently one of only three senior center-backs in the squad, and if Hull City manager Leonid Slutsky manages to work wonders and propel the Tigers back up to the big time with Hector featuring regularly, it’d surely mean that they’d consider keeping the Chelsea loanee on a permanent basis.

Good luck, Big Hec!