Hull City Football Club News

• Nickname:The Tigers
• Founded:1904
• Manager:Nick Barmby

• Ground:Kingston Communications Stadium
• Capacity:25,404

Brown defends Bullard buy

18 Feb 2009 - 14:02:39

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Hull City manager Phil Brown has admitted that Jimmy Bullard's knee injury is causing him some concern.

The Tigers spent a club record transfer fee of £5million to bring the Fulham midfielder to the KC Stadium last month only for the 30-year-old to pick up the injury on his debut for the club.

Bullard, who spent 18 months on the sidelines with a similar injury during his time at Craven Cottage, has flown to America to undergo arthroscopic surgery on a cartilage tear in his right knee.

Brown told the Hull Daily Mail: "Of course I understand supporters' fears and, if anyone's in a fearful situation, it's Paul Duffen and his investors.

"As far as I'm concerned, I'll take full responsibility for Jimmy being at this club.

"We've got to make big decisions but I don't think taking a chance on Jimmy Bullard was a big decision.

"Jimmy came to us with an injury that happened 18 months previously and having recovered from it by playing 50 games.

"The character of the man and the quality of the player was worth the weight of money that we paid for him.

"Consequently, it has been a very unfortunate situation where, in the first 35 minutes of playing for us, he finds himself with a jarred knee.

"The bottom line is, that when Jimmy has this minor operation, and hopefully it's a minor operation, I'll be a happy man that Jimmy Bullard is a Hull City player and not a Fulham player.

"But I don't want to put a time constraint on that because it puts pressure on everyone.

"The best-case scenario is for it to be a meniscus tear, the knee is flushed out and the ACL is intact."