Kicking off this Premier League season with just 13 senior players available is destined to become the fabled stuff of Hull City folklore. Things have improved for Mike Phelan three months on. But only just.
Recent injuries to Abel Hernandez and Will Keane, half of the club's attacking stable, ensure City head to Sunderland on Saturday with just 16 fit senior professionals. Adama Diomande serves the last of a three-match ban, joining Andy Robertson, Moses Odubajo, Alex Bruce and Allan McGregor on an uncomfortable list of absentees.
City's starting XI at the Stadium of Light might not be too far off Phelan's strongest side as it transpires but the head coach is heading back to the days he had hoped to leave behind in August, a month that ended with a late flurry of business.