Liam Rosenior hails ‘massive win’ for play-off hopefuls Hull at Cardiff

Hull head coach Liam Rosenior admitted his side’s 3-1 success at Cardiff was a “massive win” at a crucial stage of the Sky Bet Championship season.

The Tigers returned to winning ways after going six games without a victory thanks to two goals by on-loan Liverpool striker Fabio Carvalho and Jaden Philogene’s second-half strike against his former team.

Victory saw Hull climb one place to ninth and they remain six points off the play-off places.

Rosenior said: “At this stage of the season this is a massive win. The pressure was on after recent results and we’ve been written off by some but we dominated this game.

“It was a really professional performance with the way we managed the game and took our goals but what was really pleasing was the way the players responded to them scoring.

“The goal came out of the blue but the effort, spirit and quality the players showed was excellent.

“We could have probably scored more. The pleasing thing is that we’re always creating chances but I told the players at half-time that we’ve been in that position before and this time we needed to see it out.

“I felt that we were coming into a good period after the performance at Leeds and we did that against a good side that just won at Coventry and were a big and physical team. When the teams came out onto the pitch it looked like lads against dads but our players have big hearts and work for each other.

“We’ve got a game in hand and if we win that then we’re only three points off the play-offs and there nothing in it. There are going to be plenty of twists and turns along the way because this league is so tough but we’re still in there.”

Cardiff briefly rallied when Karlan Grant pulled a goal out of the blue in the 57th minute only for Philogene to strike two minutes later.

The Bluebirds kicked off just one place behind Hull in the standings but are now treading water in 11th place having lost three of their last four games.

Manager Erol Bulut said: “We wasted the first half. This is not how we trained. When you don’t press well and the opponent is a good passing team, they can come out of this pressure.

“From the corner they scored the first goal, which can happen, but how we conceded the second goal was not good. We were too far away from the opponent, not aggressive enough.

“The second half was much better. We came back with the goal but then there was a misunderstanding between (Joe) Ralls and Nat (Phillips) while I was speaking to Nat and they scored.”