Hull City 2 Cardiff 1: Shota Arveladze relieved as Tigers win to confirm Championship status

Arveladze’s men are now safe after early goals from Allahyar Sayyadmanesh and Lewie Coyle earned the Tigers three points.

Aden Flint scored a late header for Cardiff, but Hull calmly held on to end a run of six successive home defeats.

Arveladze said: “Now we can say definitely (Hull are staying up), it’s good.

“It’s lovely and it’s good for the coach and the players – it was great for us and them.

“The first half was absolutely good. In the second half, we gave the ball away a little bit but we have to give credit to them for changing the system.

“Sometimes, mistakes cost you games, but this time we took our chances and the mistake we made didn’t cost us the game. We had similar games when we got nothing. This was the opposite. We closed well, got our chances and we could have killed the game early in the second half.

“They risked more with an extra striker, but we didn’t give much away and got the result we wanted.

“It was important to give our supporters that amazing feeling (of winning at home).”

Hull deserved three points by virtue of a rousing opening to the game, during which Sayyadmanesh scored his first goal for the club after eight minutes.

The Iran international admittedly could not miss following Mark McGuinness’s wayward backpass.

Cardiff then gifted another goal to Hull three minutes later when they failed to clear the lines inside their penalty area.

The resulting skirmish fell to Coyle, who swept home into the bottom left-hand corner of the net.

Flint offered hope for the visitors after 81 minutes with a powerful header from a corner but Cardiff did not do enough and were duly punished.