Duffen dismisses Brown links

Hull chairman Paul Duffen has no doubts about manager Phil Brown’s commitment to the club.

Brown was immediately listed among the favourites for the post at Sunderland following Roy Keane’s resignation yesterday and continues to be linked with the Black Cats despite denying interest.

Brown’s reputation has soared over the past year after guiding Hull into the Premier League and overseeing a superb start to life in the top flight.

As a boyhood Sunderland fan, he also has an obvious connection to the Wearside club but he recently signed a new contract tying him to Hull until 2011 and Duffen insists he is going nowhere.

“I think the speculation is totally inevitable,” Duffen said. “You have got a guy who was born in the territory and a football club with a vacancy.

“Phil is an incredibly successful manager and he is very talented, so it is inevitable that people are going to link him to any job that is vacant, especially when there is a geographic connection.

“He is contracted to the club for three years and he is in the middle of a project that has just begun.

“It is a great adventure, a journey that he is enjoying and he has got an opportunity most managers never have to build a big football club.

“We’re actually rather disappointed he was only third or fourth favourite for the Sunderland job because that certainly underestimates his abilities!

“He is a fantastic guy, a great manager and he is very busy doing what he is doing and enjoying it.”

Hull produced an outstanding finish to their last campaign to secure promotion via the Coca-Cola Championship play-offs.

The club have not looked back since with Brown making 12 summer signings and lifting the club into sixth place ahead of tomorrow’s visit of Middlesbrough to the KC Stadium.

Duffen added: “We are coming towards the end of the calendar year now, which obviously eclipses two seasons.

“If you look back at what has been achieved in that 12-month period it is absolutely outstanding and I doubt any football club has achieved so much in one 12-month period.

“Phil has done an incredible job and he is very much in the early days of something that he is enjoying and I am very happy to be on that journey with him.

“I am absolutely convinced it is a project he is looking to complete whilst at Hull City.”