Experience is a greatly praised quality which, by definition, can only be levelled at a certain generation of professional footballer. It is currently the attribute which most keeps Kevin Kilbane in the Hull City picture, and more than ever now do we need it.
Kilbane is likely to shift from the left flank to the heart of the team for the visit of Stoke City after the horrible but not unexpected news that the industrial strength whack Ian Ashbee took across his knee at Aston Villa on Monday night has ended his season. The prognosis is a ruptured posterior cruciate ligament.
Ashbee's return after suspension lasted nine minutes, and now we've lost him for these crucial, all-compassing, do or die three games which remain. However, for all his game experience, he was still learning as a Premier League player, using his leadership and human nous as much as his ability to get through the type of matches which he, at the age of 32, had not encountered before.
For all the disappointment and worry which will come from losing the Tigers captain, the movement of Kilbane to partner George Boateng in the centre will at least create a midfield of every kind of experience. They are seasoned international performers, longtime Premier League players and in their 30s. Ashbee only has age and personal characteristics on his side; these two have actual big games on their CVs. Both have played for their countries (although Boateng is a novice compared to the highly becapped Kilbane) while they have also played for very big clubs (Aston Villa, Everton) with European qualification or domestic success a real ambition. Ashbee has played big games in context with a long Hull City career - relegation dogfights, promotion clinchers, a certain game at Wembley - but more comes from being in the top games within the top of the game.
It must also be Kilbane who replaces Ashbee as the other alternative is Dean Marney, a player who while clearly skilled, is shorn of every ounce of confidence which he displayed so triumphantly when playing his rampaging role in the glorious 4-3-3 of the autumn. The vacancy Kilbane will create on the left can allow a return for Nick Barmby, whose presence will create a three-man midfield of considerable experience, and again of the type most craved in a situation like that of the Tigers.
Kilbane has, furthermore, proven far more effective as a central midfielder than he has a wide one since joining the Tigers in January.
The absence of the mighty Ashbee will be mourned, not least by his manager, who believes him to be a captain of class and genuine influence. But losing him as a player isn't the end providing the main attributes he leaves behind are reproduced by the very men chosen to replace him.
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