City’s head of recruitment has been talking in detail about the struggles of the Tigers’ promotion season
Hull City will be playing Premier League football next season(Image: Trevor Wilkinson/MI News/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
Recruitment specialist Martin Hodge admits finding out that Hull City had been hit by a three-window transfer fee restriction last summer almost left him flat on his back.
City had appointed Sergej Jakirovic and were planning to spend around £2.5m to sign Louie Barry from Aston Villa, before their collective world caved in.
Immediately, head of recruitment Hodge, along with sporting director Jared Dublin and owner Acun Ilicali, had to pivot quickly to focus on signing players on free transfers, or on loan but without any loan fees to ensure they could give Jakirovic a competitive squad, and one capable of coping with the extreme and relentless demands of Championship football.
Their recruitment proved superb, with Oli McBurnie arriving, alongside the likes of Semi Ajayi, John Lundstram, Joe Gelhardt and Amir Hadziahmetovic, while in January, Paddy McNair, Yu Hirakawa and Lewis Koumas all came in to play significant roles in the second half of the campaign.
The Tigers are now preparing for life in the Premier League after beating Middlesbrough in the Championship play-off final at Wembley, and worries over embargoes and bans on paying transfer fees have since been consigned to history.
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“To be honest, when I sat in the meeting, and they said we’re in an embargo, I nearly fell off the chair,” Hodge said in conversation with Hull Live. “I was gutted because I came to the club believing we’d have a few quid to get up because I know what it takes. I’ve done it for nine years at Burnley, and we did it at Watford and Cardiff.
“I thought you just needed a few funds. It was as though the rug was pulled from under us. Somebody once said to me, one of my old coaches said, ‘Always deal with the hand you’re given, don’t worry about anything.’ And I’ve always worked on if you’ve got nothing tough. Get on with it.
“So what we did is we looked at the older pros for this level. We looked at those that have been at this level. We didn’t build for anything further than this division. We just went right, we’ll get the McBurnies. Before I was here, I got a phone call from Jared about Crooksy (Matt Crooks).
“I said, yeah (sign him), if he can get back to where he was before he left for America, go and get him. Jared’s always been in touch with me over the years. All scouts, recruitment staff and sporting directors, we all talk to each other. We’re all after the same players, but you’re finding the diamonds that want to come to you.
“McBurnie, you look at McBurnie, you look at Crooksy, and you look at homegrown players like Coyley (Lewie Coyle). These are men, they’re not kids, they’re men.”
From the moment City hauled themselves back into the top six on a dramatic, exhilarating and memorable final day of the regular season, Hodge admits his faith in success was strong.
“When we knew that we had Millwall away, I thought we’d beat Millwall. Southampton, I thought ‘ooooo’, because their squad is unbelievable,” Hodge continued.
“I honestly believed, and the chairman (Acun Ilicali) asked me, “Will we beat Millwall? Will we meet Middlesbrough? I said, “Yeah, and he went, ‘That’s not like you. Honestly, because I’ve seen Middlesbrough a lot, and I knew that they would have a lot of possession, but at the end of it, you’ve got to stop them scoring, and you’ll still be in the game, and it worked out that way.”
Hodge and Dublin have forged a formidable partnership after coming together early in 2025, and the 67-year-old says his vast experience of working under Sean Dyche at Burnley, or with the Welsh national team, sets him up well to work alongside the American and bring out the best in each other for the benefit of the Tigers.
“It’s been an unbelievable season,” he continued. “What the players and the management have achieved is just something unbelievable. It’s made Jared and myself really proud.
“It’s brilliant to have Jared working alongside me, well, he’s my boss. He’s an encyclopedia of football, and what he doesn’t know, I’ll know and vice versa, and I think it works. I’m getting to that stage now where these lot (the staff) call me the old man. I’m 67, and I don’t know how many days are going to be like this.
“He (the gaffer) slaughters me, Marko slaughters me, but I think that knowledge of being 67 helps situations like this, where we’ve had a tough season.
“I think I know football. I think I’ve been in it long enough, and don’t get me wrong, I ain’t this superstar coach, I just do what I need to do, and Jared does, and the bond between us is brilliant. My scouts have been absolutely superb because we’re only a small body of scouts, so everybody in the department has worked well to get to where we are.”
City had plans for both the Championship and Premier League, depending on how the season panned out, and now, Plan A has been activated with recruitment meetings already taking place since the Wembley victory, and continuing throughout what will be a crucial period in the club’s preparations for the Premier League.
“Retirement is, I don’t know the word, to be honest,” the former Sheffield Wednesday goalkeeper laughed, having regularly joked that he’s retired. “Ours (preparations) began a while ago, preparing for both scenarios – Championship and Premier League. There are no days off for us. Jared and I will be going through players, even when he’s (Jared Dublin) on holiday, we’ll be going through players, so we don’t get a rest now, we just keep going.”
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