Burnley boss Owen Coyle has backed his good friend Phil Brown to keep his job at Hull as speculation continues to grow about his future at the KC Stadium.

The Clarets boss, who played alongside the then captain Brown at Bolton in the mid-1990s, believes his Hull counterpart has worked wonders during his three-year reign.

But a poor start to the season - with Hull lying 18th - has seen the Tigers boss come in for heavy criticism, and amidst growing speculation both the club and Brown himself have been forced to go on record insisting he remains in charge.

On Thursday morning the East Yorkshire side confirmed that club chairman, and a close friend of Brown's, Paul Duffen had resigned, raising further question marks about the Hull manager's future.

"Browny is a good friend of mine and was my captain at Bolton in a very successful team," said Coyle. "He is a man I've got a lot of time for.

"There's no doubt he's done a fantastic job at Hull but it's the nature of football that people are always on to you and are always critical. He's got a great sense of humour and is a real nice guy.

"Having said that the two of us will be going all out to try and get the three points for our respective clubs on Saturday. But after that I think we would like to sit down and reminisce."

Coyle was quick to point out that although Hull's promotion to the Barclays Premier League in May 2008 and survival the following season were admirable achievements, they served only to heighten expectations.

He added: "I think the problem in football is that the more success you deliver then expectation rises. I've spoken about this before, balancing expectation and realism.

"That's what has happened at Hull. Taking them into the Premier League where they hadn't been raised the bar.

"Then people expect that to be an onward process and continue but to do that you need the right funding and the right type of players.

"If people would have said to the Hull fans two years ago that you will be a Premier League team and Brown would have been the man to have led you there then they would have been delighted. So how that changed all of a sudden that's beyond me."

Hull, like Burnley, are without a win on the road this season and have won just two of their opening 10 league games.

Although Coyle does believe Brown is capable of transforming Hull's fortunes and keeping them in the top flight, he hopes that revival does not begin at Turf Moor on Saturday.

"Hopefully he will not turn things around in the immediate future," Coyle added.

"He loves his football and leaves no stone unturned in how he goes about his job.

"As I said before he is right for that job and I think he will continue to take Hull onwards and upwards."