Hull's under-achieving players are set to pay the ultimate price for ex-chairman Paul Duffen's overspending at the troubled Premier League club.Duffen's replacement, Adam Pearson, has returned to Hull with the task of resolving the club's dire financial problems.
Hull need to find £18m before the end of the season to make sure the club remains solvent and Pearson has admitted his first task will be to streamline manager Phil Brown's squad and off-load those players who are costing him a fortune in wages without contributing to results on the pitch. This all points towards an uncomfortable two months for up to 15 members of Brown's 40-man squad. This is the number of players Pearson has confirmed to FanHouse that he is looking to get rid of from the KC Stadium.
Duffen resigned last week after it emerged Hull had run up debts of £27m. It has also emerged that Hull have spent more than £5m on agents' fees over the last two years.
Pearson has been left to pick up the pieces and some big names might not be spared from his axe. These could include George Boateng, Bernard Mendy, Caleb Folan, Daniel Cousin and on-loan Ibrahima Sonko, who all earn in excess of £25,000-a-week.
Pearson said: "We need to get back in shape to make sure the long-term future of the club is secure. It's nothing that's not retrievable but we need to reduce the size of the squad. I want to get the squad down from about 40 players to around 25.
"We are certainly not in a situation where we need to sell players we want to keep. We just want to make sure the club is being run efficiently."
Pearson has also challenged Brown to save himself from the sack by leading Hull back to winning ways. He added: "I'm desperate for Phil to win some games and then all this conjecture can go away."
