Nigel Adkins knows precisely what is required to knock Chelsea out of the FA Cup. “Magic,” says Hull City’s fifth manager in under two years. “We’re going to need a lot of magic.”

He takes the struggling Championship side to Stamford Bridge on Friday night without 12 injured, ineligible or suspended players and, in any case, cannot afford to put the fifth-round tie ahead of attempting to avoid a second successive relegation. Fourth bottom of the second tier, the 2014 finalists – Steve Bruce’s team lost 3-2 after extra-time to Arsenal – hover one point above the drop zone.

If the tie’s preamble has been overshadowed by the news that the midfielder Ryan Mason has cut his ties with Hull after conceding defeat in the struggle to play again after the skull fracture he suffered at Chelsea, Adkins devoted part of the week to diplomacy. Desperate for unity, the manager is mediating in a civil war between the owners, the Allam family, and the fans.

“There’s a lot of unrest,” the former Scunthorpe, Southampton, Reading and Sheffield United manager admits, “but we need togetherness.”

It all seems depressingly out of sync with Hull’s regeneration as the 2017 UK city of culture. Quite apart from being described as “an unmitigated, rip-roaring, awe-inspiring, life-enhancing, success” by the Arts Council, those transformative 12 months in the national spotlight provided the city with a £60m-plus economic boost.

The club’s relegation from the Premier League represented a rare blot on the landscape, with the stain becoming more unsightly as Leonid Slutsky, the former CSKA Moscow and Russia manager who succeeded Marco Silva last summer, floundered.

Adkins arrived in December but results have been slow to improve. Considering his team face Championship games at Middlesbrough next Tuesday and at home against Sheffield United three days later, he could probably do without the Chelsea Cup tie.

Yet with Hull receiving £47m in parachute payments this season and the last published accounts – covering 2016-17 – showing a £35m pre-tax profit, supporters wonder why more money has not been invested in the squad. Instead of speculating to accumulate, the club signed 11 players for a total of £16m last summer while offloading 16 – most notably Harry Maguire to Leicester and Sam Clucas to Swansea – for more than £40m.

Everyone makes mistakes in life but on balance I still think we've done a good job Ehab Allam

It has not always been this way. On assuming control in December 2010, the Allam family averted the threat of administration and have since loaned Hull more than £77m. On their watch, a club that only a decade earlier resided in England’s fourth tier has won two promotions to the top flight, reached an FA Cup final and competed in the Europa League. The trouble is that along the way the owners not only alienated Bruce, their most successful manager, who resigned in July 2016, but picked unnecessary fights with fans over an unpopular decision to remove concessions.

Following a recent bout of uneasy bridge-building with supporters’ leaders, Ehab Allam, the vice‑chairman, looks set to reverse that decision and has also offered an explanation of where the parachute payments have gone.

“We’re still paying instalments on transfer fees from last season,” he says. “And our player wage bill is almost £30m.” He also claims much of the £35m profit was swallowed by the need to compensate for a £20m loss the previous year and, with Hull being paid in instalments for Maguire and co, they are not as cash rich as they may appear.

Even so, a key reason driving the lack of spending is the club’s “for sale” status. Ehab and his father, Assem, have wanted out since 2014 when the FA vetoed Assem’s idea of renaming it Hull Tigers.

Yet, as Newcastle United’s owner, Mike Ashley, and his Sunderland counterpart, Ellis Short, have discovered, finding a buyer is not easy. Moreover, Hull City council’s ownership of the stadium represents a further complicating factor.

“It’s time for us to sell,” Ehab Allam says. “That’s what the fans seem to want. Ideally we’d like to recover what we’ve put into the club.”

Although a number of prospective purchasers emerged last season offers fell through and there are now no serious bidders. The board fears “militant” fans who have protested against the Allam family’s stewardship during games are acting as a deterrent. “The disruption isn’t helping,” says the vice-chairman, who has received “intelligence” predicting supporters may interrupt the televised Sheffield United game by blowing referees’ whistles at key moments. “But I’m trying to fix the relationship with the fans.”

Harmony is unlikely to be restored if the team drop into League One. “I think we’ll be safe, we have a strong enough squad to survive this season,” he adds. “Everybody makes mistakes in life and we could have done certain things a little better but on balance I still think we’ve done a good job.”

Adkins is doing his best in vexing circumstances. “We’ve probably got 12 missing for Chelsea,” says a manager likely to be without the influential Kamil Grosicki and Michael Dawson. “It’s a challenging scenario. We’ve got to play players who probably won’t last 90 minutes. Anything’s possible in the FA Cup but we’re going there under no illusions.”