There's plenty of talk about the future of Hull City boss Phil Brown on Friday morning, with a bit of a difference of opinion between a couple of the Fleet Street hacks.

For baby-faced Sam Wallace in the Independent, Brown is the victim of his own self-image, Whereby Phil Brown has made Phil Brown into a figure of fun. It's all down to Phil Brown, you see.

While Sam thinks Phil Brown can still rescue a long-term future in the Premier League with another club, at the same time he recognises that it cannot happen if the Tigers boss continues to act as the all-conquering hero of the hour.

First he had been regarded as the likeable down-to-earth English manager taking on the big boys of the Premier League. Then the worm turned. Suddenly Brown became English football's David Brent.

Few managerial reigns have combined such spectacular achievement with such disaster in such a short space of time.

Brown has not made it hard for his critics, and this newspaper has been among them, to take pot-shots. There was his ill-advised rant against Cesc Fabregas and Arsène Wenger last season and the allegations of spitting that were never likely to be substantiated. In the end not a single Hull player gave evidence. There was his bizarrely vague claim that he had talked a woman out of taking her own life while walking with his squad across the Humber Bridge.

In true Brentian style, Brown is the man who always believes he has just thought up the best gag for the situation and, with a captive audience, he is damn well going to tell you it. After Hull's home draw with Manchester City last November he noted the accent of a reporter in the post-match press conference and said, with cheery confidence, "You're Brazilian, I bet you're going to ask me about Geovanni". The reporter in question was Greek.

Yes, it is easy to have a dig at Brown. But when he does go the Premier League will have lost a character who clearly had a real talent for management if only he could have cleared away the rest of the rubbish surrounding the game. And as for the criticisms that Brown was too ready to be quoted or interviewed – that confidence he showed was a strength. It is a pity more managers do not do it.

The root of it was that as soon as Brown stopped taking himself seriously it was hard for the rest of us not to do the same. No doubt he will be back at some point if it does all end with Hull next week. Hopefully minus the earpiece.

George Caulkin, in The Times, is more appreciative of Phil Brown and the impending doom which hangs over his managerial career.

There are a myriad of factors behind Hull City’s difference, their rise and decline, but Brown has been at the fulcrum of all of it. Just as his appointment as caretaker manager on December 4, 2006 was the catalyst for the team to clamber out of the relegation zone of the Coca-Cola Championship, so the 50-year-old became the personality that subsequently propelled their promotion to the Barclays Premier League.

The increasingly melodramatic managerial tics, the stroll with his squad to the site of Boothferry Park, the “rescue” of a suicidal woman on the Humber Bridge, the confiscation of the players’ dartboard and removing the plug from their coffee machine, had any positive effect? Does [Adam] Pearson’s finger hover over the trigger?

Hull play away to Burnley tomorrow. Brown must be yearning for one of those rare Saturdays when his players do the talking. There were few quips at his press conference yesterday. Is his difference no longer the story and simply the problem?

And finally, a quick look at Steven Howard's column in The Sun as he hits out at Arsene Wenger for his inability to solve Arsenal's goalkeeper situation throughout the whole of his tenure.

They have four goalkeepers on the books - Vito Mannone, Manuel Almunia, Lukasz Fabianski and teen Wojciech Szczesny - and none, for one reason or other, look up to the job.

It's a strange situation for a club that down the years had huge characters like Jack Kelsey, Bob Wilson, Pat Jennings, David Seaman and Jens Lehmann between the posts.

Even Jimmy Rimmer and John Lukic were a rung above anything they have now.

Keepers remain Arsene Wenger's blind spot - remember Richard Wright and Rami Shaaban? A situation even more worrying for Arsenal fans than his failure to replace Sol Campbell.

Look at their rivals and there's no comparison - Petr Cech (Chelsea), Edwin van der Sar (Man Utd), Pepe Reina (Liverpool) and Shay Given (Man City).

In fact, you would be hard pushed to find a Premier League club WITHOUT a better keeper than the four at Arsenal.