• The £45,000-a-week player is not seeking a move
• Club owes £35m and wants to reduce player wage bill

Hull City’s already slim hopes of offloading Jimmy Bullard this summer received a setback today when the midfielder signalled his intention to see out the remaining three years on his £45,000-a-week contract at the KC Stadium.

A source close to Bullard said: “Jimmy is not seeking a move at all, he is happy to stay at Hull.” Selling the injury-prone former Wigan and Fulham playmaker was always going to be tricky as Hull bought him from Fulham for £5m 15 months ago despite Bullard failing a medical.

Paul Duffen, the former chairman at the KC Stadium, subsequently admitted that the club had been unable to take out insurance on their record signing as Bullard’s knees were uninsurable.

Realistically, the only way anyone might be tempted to recruit him would be on a pay-as-you-play basis but the fragile kneed 31-year-old is not prepared to exchange a basic £45,000-a-week – and with assorted add-ons that remuneration rises to around £50,000 – for such insecurity.

Hull, who have commissioned an independent audit of their finances, are £35m in debt, in effect relegated from the Premier League and trying to stave off the threat of administration or the need to enter a Company Voluntary Arrangement. With the atmosphere between the club’s owner Russell Bartlett and the chairman Adam Pearson extremely tense, it is not impossible Pearson could resign. For the moment, he is working to reduce the player wage bill from £40m a year to £15m while also helping restructure the debt by re-negotiating loans with various creditors.

It helps that, due to high earners including George Boateng being out of contract this summer and a series of loan deals involving players such as Jozy Altidore ending, natural wastage means the wage bill is expected to drop significantly by July. Although the club intends to make a announcement regarding their future direction at the end of this week the next two months will be critical in averting administration or a CVA and the attendant deduction of 10 points by the Football League.

Much depends on whether Hull can meet an outstanding £4m plus tax debt to HM Revenue and Customs. It would help if they could swiftly sell the midfielder Stephen Hunt. He is valued at around £5m but is recovering from a broken foot and will not be fit again until August, thereby missing pre-season training at a new club. This makes him less attractive to potential suitors and, apart form delaying any deal, may force his price down.

Even so Bartlett’s biggest current worry will be the potential loss of an increasingly disillusioned Pearson. Acknowledged as one of the brightest financial brains in football Pearson was brought back to the club he rescued from extinction in 2001 and sold to Bartlett in 2007, last winter in the wake of Duffen’s abrupt departure following an auditor’s warning from Hull’s accountants Deloitte.

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• ‘It’s a horrible feeling but we just have to get on with it’
• Bullard apologises to Women’s Institute for Barmby bust-up

Jimmy Bullard believes his former manager Phil Brown deserved the chance to see out the season with Hull City. Brown departed last week following a run of four successive defeats and with the Tigers entrenched in the bottom three. But the decision was still a surprise given Brown’s achievements in his three and a half years with Hull and coming so close to the end of the season.

It also followed a match against Arsenal where 10-man City looked set to hold on for a draw until a late mistake by the goalkeeper Boaz Myhill. Asked whether Brown, who was quickly replaced by Iain Dowie, deserved more time, the midfielder Bullard said: “I felt so, I really did. Coming after the Arsenal game, where I felt like we did really well, it was a bit of a shock for me.

“I was surprised but it’s happened to me before when Chris Coleman ended up leaving Fulham. If you’re down in that relegation zone or your team’s on a bad run, the manager’s getting put under serious amounts of pressure.

“Chairmen, owners, they want results. They’re thinking: ‘We can’t change the players, can we change the manager?’ That’s the way it is. It’s a horrible feeling but we’ve just got to get on with it.

“He had a great three years. I’ve spoken to him and he respects the decision. I didn’t get into great detail with him because he was upset and obviously we were. But he’s a man and I suppose he took it like a man and held his chin up high.”

Bullard admitted feeling a sense of responsibility for Brown’s fate. “We step on the pitch and, when your manager gets pushed out, you blame yourself,” he added. “Obviously we haven’t done enough to keep him here. I know he’s a good man, and that’s a big part of why I signed. Sod the football side, I liked him as a man.”

One of Brown’s final tasks was to face the media following a fight in training between Bullard and Nicky Barmby ahead of the Arsenal game. The incident was made more embarrassing because it was witnessed by a large party from the Women’s Institute.

Bullard said the pressure of Hull’s situation had been a factor: “There were a few words said and it just got out of hand. We did have a little roll around but one thing I do apologise for is to do it in front of the old ladies. It shouldn’t have happened and I apologise on Nick’s behalf as well.”

Despite the incident, Bullard insists the spirit within the camp is good following their first week working with the former Crystal Palace and Charlton manager Dowie. With former club Fulham due at the KC Stadium on Saturday, Bullard continued: “Always when there’s a new manager been brought in, there’s life brought in, training’s a bit sharper, a bit more intense. Players have got to prove what they can do to the new manager.

“As a team, we’re all behind one another without a shadow of a doubt. We’ve got a good team spirit and, if we start believing in what we can do, which we do, as soon as we put a little run together, I think we’ll be fine.”

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The winners could rise to 13th. The losers could drop into the relegation places. If there were not eight teams involved in the survival scrap, the game would be branded, erroneously, a six-pointer. Phil Brown calls the prospect “mouth-watering”. He has urged Hull, without an away win, to recall such victories as last season, at Arsenal and Spurs. They are buoyed anyway by George Boateng’s availability (red card rescinded). Jimmy Bullard may be on the bench. West Ham are buoyed by their 2-0 defeat of Birmingham. Jeremy Alexander

Venue Upton Park

Tickets £35-51 (0871 222 2700)

Last season West Ham 2 Hull 0

Referee M Atkinson

This season’s matches 20 Y84, R2, 4.30 cards per game

Odds West Ham 5-6 Hull 4-1 Draw 13-5

West Ham

Subs from Kurucz, Stech, Da Costa, Stanislas, Daprela, Collison, Mido, Ilan, Franco, Ngala, Spence

Doubtful Daprela (foot), Franco (hamstring)

Injured Gabbidon (hamstring, 23 Feb), McCarthy (knee, 23 Feb), Dyer (hamstring, 6 Mar), Ilunga (hamstring, 13 Mar), Boa Morte (knee, May), Hines (knee, May), Davenport (legs, unknown)

Suspended None

Form guide WLDDDL

Disciplinary record Y47 R3

Leading scorer Cole 8

Hull

Subs from Duke, Zayatte, Kilbane, Olofinjana, Barmby, Garcia, Bullard, Zaki, Sonko, Ghilas, Marney

Doubtful Bullard (knee), Ghilas (thigh), Marney (calf)

Injured Geovanni (knee, 7 Mar), Ashbee (knee, May)

Suspended None

Form guide LWDDLD

Disciplinary record Y49 R3

Leading scorer Hunt 6

Match pointers

• Hull’s current run of 18 away matches without a win is the worst in the division

• West Ham were the only London side to win at home against Hull in 2008-09

• Jimmy Bullard’s only league appearance for Hull last season came at Upton Park and lasted 37 minutes

• If selected, Robert Green will be making the 350th league start of his career

• William Gallas and Aaron Hughes (2,340) are the only outfield players to have played more minutes in the Premier League than Andy Dawson (2,317) this season

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