Why have Liverpool sent Herbie Kane to a side stacked with midfielders?

Liverpool have loaned Herbie Kane to Hull City for the rest of the season, but why has he joined a club stacked with midfielders?

The Tigers have taken the 21-year-old on for six months but they are already stacked with players who have featured heavily in the engine room. It seems like an odd marriage.

Their manager Grant McCann was the boss of Doncaster Rovers when Kane was sent to Yorkshire for 2018/2019 and did well. He scored even goals in 49 appearances and it was a surprise when he didn’t make a move in the summer.

The goal is to give him as much first team football as possible – like Harry Wilson did when he went to Hull for half a season – but the Tigers already have youngster Australian Jackson Irvine (25 appearances), Daniel Batty (19), former Liverpool man Kevin Stewart (17), Leonardo da Silva Lopes (23) and George Honeyman (23).

McCann even has last season’s captain Markus Henriksen available but he’s been frozen out this campaign and hasn’t featured for a single minute.

If Hull are going to replace someone with Herbie Kane, you wouldn’t bet on it being Irvine. He’s been a vital part of the season, but it wouldn’t make sense for it to be Batty either. Why bring a youngster on loan to block the progression of one you already have?

In the last game McCann played 4-2-3-1 with those two in the midfield and Honeyman as the playmaker. Hull have da Silva Lopes available and Stewart as back ups and now Kane will need to fit in to that formation too.

Unless they sell someone, it doesn’t appear as if there is natural path to the squad. McCann knows the player and his strengths, which is a positive, but still the outlook isn’t initially positive for the Liverpool loanee.

Hopefully this is all proven wrong and Herbie Kane goes on to have a successful half-season with the Tigers and comes back to the squad as a much improved player.