Hull 2-1 Wolves: Steve Bruce and Kenny Jackett reaction
Saturday 16 April 2016 08:03, UK
Steve Bruce hopes Robert Snodgrass' late winner against Wolves will give his "underperforming" Hull a confidence boost in the Sky Bet Championship.
Hull kept their faint hopes of automatic promotion to the Premier League alive with a 2-1 victory on Friday night which leaves them eight points behind second-placed Brighton with five games remaining.
Hull took an early lead through Adama Diomande's opportunist goal at the KC Stadium but Dave Edwards' close-range header brought the teams level before Snodgrass' free-kick hit the bar and went in off Wolves keeper Carl Ikeme.
Hull manager Bruce said: "It's a wonder goal which has got us out of trouble because if we're going to be really honest, we've got to perform better than that.
"We scored in the last 20 seconds tonight and we scored in the last 20 seconds on Saturday (in the 2-2 draw at Huddersfield) so I can't fault the players' effort.
"We are lacking that bit of a spark and I think that's evident to everybody. Let's hope the goal brings it back, because confidence is a wonderful thing.
"We've got no divine right to win this league because we are underperforming at the wrong time."
Bruce felt his players lacked confidence and that transferred to the crowd.
He added: "You see them and they get nervous and anxious and the crowd join in, which I understand. We are fourth, it feels as if we are fourth bottom. There's an air of doom and gloom."
The game was only five minutes old when Hull took the lead through Diomande as he finished from 12 yards after mistakes by Dominic Iorfa and Ikeme had presented him with an open goal.
An unmarked Edwards equalised with a close range header from a fine Jeremy Helan cross with 18 minutes gone and that looked set to earn Wolves a point as both sides struggled to assert their authority.
Snodgrass had other ideas and his injury time free-kick hit the underside of the bar and then bounced off Ikeme before crossing the line.
But Wolves manager Kenny Jackett did not blame Ikeme for the winning goal.
He said: "It was an excellently executed free-kick. It has come off the bar and hit his back."
But Jackett did admit that Hull had only taken the lead early in the game because of an Ikeme mistake.
"It looked poor, it was an out-and-out mistake. It looked like it was in his hands," explained Jackett.
"In my three years here, Ikeme has been a very good goalkeeper for us and a very good player, he's a leader in the dressing room in a young group."
Jackett was pleased with the way his side bounced back from the early setback of Hull's opening goal.
He said: "We gave Hull a lot of problems in the first half. Second half, it did look like the game was petering out and falling away (before the late winner). When you look at the quality they had coming off the bench, that is where we have to get."
