Hull City's Jacob Greaves on the Acun Ilicali gesture which has got him 'buzzing'

The Tigers will take 37 coach-loads of supporters to Stoke City on Saturday as fans take advantage of Acun Ilicali's latest attempt to reunite the Championship club with a fanbase which had become disenfranchised.

This week the Turkish television mogul's efforts have been more focused on helping the emergency operation in his homeland and Syria after earthquakes which are believed to have killed 16,000 people.

But when it comes to the slightly more trivial issue of his football club, Ilicali's charitable side has also had a positive effect.

The chairman has decided to lay on free coaches for Hull fans travel to every away game for the remainder of the campaign, a gesture which has been enthusiastically taken up this weekend.

Home-grown central defender Greaves says it makes a difference on the field.

"We've got a lot of the fans back which is really good to see," he said.

"Free travel for the away games is an incredible gesture really, and that's what you want.

"The players are buzzing about that. You want to go to an away game and play in front of loads of fans and turn it into a home game. The Wigan game (on New Year's Day) felt like a home game because we had so many fans in there and they were making noise, which is good.

"You can see with the fans coming to away games, we're playing a lot better away from home which hopefully we can carry on doing.

"Fair play to the owner, he's come in and taken the football club onto another level, and hopefully we can keep climbing the table and see where we can go."

Hull’s biggest sign of recent progress has come with back-to-back home wins over Queens Park Rangers and Cardiff City, after a run of eight matches without. New coach Liam Rosenior’s impact is being felt.

"The squad is now starting to shape really nicely," said Greaves. "You've just got to watch the standard of training since the gaffer has come in, and it's been upped a couple of levels.

"Everyone's on it every day, we've got a greater emphasis on keeping the ball. We're doing smaller, tighter drills and the lads are really taking to it, and you can see we're dominating the ball a little bit more."

Malcolm Ebiwoei could be in line for a debut after joining on loan from Crystal Palace with a groin injury. Dimitrios Pelkas has recovered from a knee problem.