Hull City stay calm and move up in the Championship standings
SERGEJ JAKIROVIC praised his Hull City team for keeping their cool as they strengthened their play-off credentials with a 3-0 win at Championship play-off rivals Preston North End.
Former North End loanee Liam Millar set Hull on the way to a 3-0 win with a 33rd-minute tap-in at Deepdale, with Akin Famewo doubling the lead just before half-time.
Oli McBurnie acrobatically put the icing on the cake in the 53rd minute but worse was to follow for Preston after Milutin Osmajic’s late red card for clashing with John Lundstram.
The Montenegro striker has previously served long suspensions after being found guilty of biting Blackburn’s Owen Beck and for allegedly making racist comments to Burnley’s Hannibal Mejbri.
Jakirovic was keen to emphasise afterwards how much his team deserved the three points, the victory seeing them leapfrog Millwall – who lost 2-1 at runaway leaders Coventry City – and into fourth in the table.
“I think we controlled the whole game – everything,” said the Tigers’ boss. “I think we found balance in our performance, in possession, out of possession.
“Their two strikers up front, they got a lot of long balls, second balls, that was tricky on this demanding pitch. The pitch is not in the best condition and we scored three nice goals.
“In the second half, I had in our mind the first game where Preston killed us in the first half in Hull (but Hull came back to draw 2-2). It was very important that we were calm and that we didn’t panic at 2-0 and that we still got the result.
“Maybe we should have scored two or three more but I’m very happy because that’s back-to-back wins and we are very satisfied with this.”