Brown feeling the pressure at Hull

SOCCER NEWS:PHIL BROWN is under mounting pressure at Hull City and probably has until the end of next month to save his job. Paul Duffen, the club's chairman, is hoping Brown can transform Hull's season but it is understood that Alan Curbishley and Gordon Strachan are potential replacements for one of football's more extrovert characters.

Brown saw his side beaten 4-0 by Everton in the League Cup on Wednesday, their third successive defeat. Following the team’s collapse during the second half of last season, when Hull won only one of their last 22 league games and only narrowly avoided relegation, this is prompting questions about the manager’s enduring ability to motivate his charges and keep the dressingroom onside.

The 50-year-old has always enjoyed a close relationship with Duffen but recent games have seen the hitherto loyal KC Stadium crowd turn against Brown, making persistent chants of “You don’t know what you’re doing” and “Browny sort it out”.

“Yes, there’s pressure,” acknowledged Brown, Sam Allardyce’s one-time assistant at Bolton Wanderers, who subsequently endured a torrid spell in charge of Derby County. After winning promotion in 2008 with Hull and beginning last season so brightly it was thought Brown had put the Derby debacle behind him and re-emerged as one of England’s more promising managerial talents.

But the Tigers visit Liverpool on Saturday with the focus very much on his future. Providing he survives that, Hull then face Wigan Athletic and Portsmouth at home and Fulham and Burnley away, a run of games that look more winnable. “October is going to be massive for us,” he said. “We’ve got a big job to do but this is a long-term project and we’ve got a long way to go. We will just have to work even harder.”

Brown fielded a weakened side against Everton but admitted afterwards: “There are one or two senior professionals who let us down.” After a full-strength Hull lost 1-0 to Birmingham City at the KC Stadium last weekend he did not shy away from criticising his team. “Confidence levels are low but there are no excuses for passing the ball off the pitch,” he said. “I am in the results business and we need to start getting some wins.”

Many attributed last season’s slide, at least partly, to the on-pitch half-time address Brown made to his players at Manchester City on St Stephen’s Day. Although he disagrees with this interpretation of events, that public humiliation as Hull lost 5-1 is increasingly regarded as a watershed. He now appears to have little more than a month to confound his growing army of doubters.

Sven-Goran Eriksson has admitted that he has yet to meet the owners of Notts County, and has met only their representatives. But the former England manager said that he was happy to remain at the club, as long as the owners keep putting money into the team. He added that he felt let down by Sol Campbell’s departure after the defender walked out on a five-year contract on Wednesday, having played one match for the club.

“No I haven’t met the people, I’ve only met representatives for the owners,” he said. “But I’m sure that everything is all right. Money comes in and everything is good. Everything we are asking for, we get it.”

Asked if he knew where the club’s money was coming from, he said: “No, I don’t know where the money comes from and I think that’s the job of the chairman to find out. I’m not interested in that. The important thing is that the money comes.”

Guardian Service