Nottm Forest 0 Hull City 1: Patience required in order for Tigers to show true colours - Bruce

The Tigers boss credited his side for their resilience, as they held out for a 1-0 win over 10-man Nottingham Forest at the City Ground that left them sitting in the play-off places.

Abel Hernandez netted his fifth goal of the season, after failing to score an earlier penalty, just before half-time, after Sam Clucas had flicked on a Shaun Maloney corner.

But Hull’s victory also required a string of saves from Allan McGregor to hold the home side at bay.

“We are trundling along and, slowly but surely, getting better,” said Bruce.

“Everyone wants entertaining, everyone wants to see good football and we do demand better. But we gave the ball away too often in the first half and that clouded the good things we were doing.

“We are still trying to find our feet. We are a couple of months into the season, we are in a good position. It has been difficult, very difficult in fact.

“But, slowly but surely we are getting used to the fact that we were relegated; slowly but surely we are becoming difficult to beat. We also have a little bit of a goal threat, which you need at every level of the game.

“We have shown a resilience. We can improve, that was certainly the case today. We looked a threat. Abel has scored a goal, we have missed a penalty. We have had a couple of headed chances. We are improving.”

Forest boss Dougie Freedman was frustrated with the result – but said there was little to criticise in his side’s performance.

“It was an outstanding performance, we were excellent. We played at a really high tempo. We created a lot of opportunities. It was a credible performance and we felt we deserved more from that performance,” he said.

Nottingham Forest: De Vries,Lichaj,Mills,Hobbs,Pinillos,Lansbury, Mancienne (Ebecilio 56),Vaughan,Oliveira,O’Grady, Mendes (Walker 82),Ebecilio (Ward 77). Unused substitutes: Williams,Fox,Evtimov,Christopher Burke.

Hull City: McGregor,Elmohamady,Dawson,Davies,Odubajo,Livermore, Huddlestone (Meyler 79),Diame (Aluko 69),Clucas, Hernandez (Akpom 74),Maloney. Unused substitutes: Bruce,Maguire,Jakupovic,Robertson.

Referee: N Miller (Durham).

Man of the match: Allan McGregor.