”Eight or nine” - Hull City owner Acun Ilicali makes bold transfer promise to Tim Walter and supporters | OneFootball

The Tigers still have a lot of work to do ahead of next season.

Hull City owner Acun Ilicali has pledged that the club will make eight or nine more signings before the end of the summer transfer window and admitted that they need reinforcements to improve the current squad.

It's a tough place that Hull currently find themselves in. Once Jaden Philogene's return move to Aston Villa is complete - one that will net the club £13 million, as per Fabrizio Romano - then they will have lost the players who scored 61 of their 68 goals and those who provided 28 of their 41 total assists last season (Michael Graham).

Tim Walter is working with a depleted team compared to the one that finished just outside the play-offs last season.

The squad, or at least part of a squad - not one that would be able to challenge at the top of the league as presently constructed - is on its pre-season tour of Turkey. There are plans to add players to the team.

Acun Ilicali's transfer window pledge

The chairman has promised his manager and the supporters that "eight or nine," signings will be made between now and the end of August. Walter has already rejected some options that have been proposed by the recruitment team, as per Ilicali.

He told Hull Live, in the press conference prior to the Tigers' pre-season friendly against José Mourinho's Fenerbahçe: "Pre-season is so important in football and we've experienced it so many times before.

"Having the coach in the beginning of the pre-season was our first target and we did that, after that, with our recruitment and of course, players leaving, I have to say from our side we have to wait, wait, wait and score the goal.

"Otherwise, we're going to make mistakes. We do not have an unlimited budget where we can spend on any player. For us, every player has to be approved by our coach and thanks to him he's not approving.

"We will make eight or nine transfers for Hull City. We will drown Tim Walter in transfers. We have shortcomings. Last year, no one expected us to be seventh. We will push hard to get to the Premier League. We are fighting against teams that are 2.5 times our budget.

"Can we? We can."

The only move that Hull have made so far in this window is for Ryan Giles. The defender was signed from Luton Town for £4 million, according to the Northern Echo, as they were obligated to following his loan spell at the MKM Stadium in the second half of last season.

The club's vice-chairman, Tan Kesler, has also confirmed that ther are interested in Crystal Palace winger Jesurun Rak-Sakyi (on loan) and West Bromwich Albion midfielder Okay Yokuslu, but he admitted that the deals won't be easy to do.

Hull need to move fast with transfer action

With the rebuild that is on the German boss' hands, it is imperative that they have most of their squad put together as quick as possible. Most things will be new for the City players this summer; new teammates, a new head coach, new training environment.

If they don't have the majority of their desired players through the door before pre-season starts to come to a close, they could be in big trouble at the start of the campaign; they simply might not have time to all gel.

They are hopeful of signing a right-back, as per Hull Live, but one addition isn't going to cut it. The hope was that he would be with the squad before they headed out to Turkey for their camp, but that's not how it's worked out.

They missed out on signing promotion-winning striker Kieffer Moore, as he decided to join Sheffield United for personal reasons. FLW also understands that Blades boss Chris Wilder personally called the Welsh forward when he was on his way to City to convince him to change his mind.

The Hull hierarchy can't have enjoyed this first month or so of the summer. They've been gutted of their best players, and are now struggling to sign the ones that they'd like. That's going to need to change fast if they want to meet their owner's ambitions of Premier League football.