Steve Bruce admits 'five or six players' could leave this summer

Hull City boss Steve Bruce admits striker Abel Hernandez could be "one of five or six" players to leave the club during the transfer window.

Torino are keen to sign the Uruguay international who moved to the KC Stadium in a £10m deal from Palermo last September.

Bruce says that relegation from the Premier League leaves the club with little room for manoeuvre when it comes to players like Hernandez, who may have buy-out clauses in their contracts.

“The most difficult thing for me is that the transfer window is still open,” Bruce said at his Friday press conference.

“With relegation, I’ve said it many times, people rightly take pay cuts. But with pay cuts, it means people have got buy-outs in their contracts.

If someone picks up the phone tomorrow and bids for Abel Hernandez and they get to the trigger point... he's off.

“If that happens, we’re powerless. So if someone picks up the phone tomorrow and bids for Abel Hernandez, for example and they get to the trigger point, he’s off.

“It’s what we want to guard against and if the window closed today I’d be delighted.

“But somehow I feel it in my bones that, as there are three weeks to go, we’ve got to be ready and try to do some planning. It might just happen in the next 24 or 48 hours.

"I’m not just talking about Abel, it could be five or six of the players I’ve got here.”