'Most important performance' - Liam Rosenior hails Hull City's win at Sunderland

Hull were without nine senior players as they travelled to Wearside, but Fabio Carvalho’s second-half strike proved sufficient to secure them a hard-fought success at the Stadium of Light.

The victory lifted the Tigers into the play-off positions – although Coventry knocked them out by winning at Sheffield Wednesday – and helped convince Rosenior that his side was capable of mounting a sustained promotion push in the remainder of the campaign.

The Hull boss said: “I think it’s the most important performance of the season.

“I wanted to see what we were made of. Coming to an amazing stadium like this, playing in front of nearly 40,000 people, when it feels as though everything is going against you.

“We’ve had some terrible luck with injuries, I think we’ve been on the wrong side of some questionable decisions at time and been on the wrong side of results when we deserved to win.

“It’s easy for a group to lose faith and lose belief in what we’re doing, but they showed they still believe, they showed they’ve got faith in each other and they showed they’re willing to work for each other.

“I thought every single player was brilliant in terms of their engagement to the game.”

Then on Saturday, Hull completed the long-anticipated signing of Ivan Pandur.

The Tigers were in talks to sign the Croatian goalkeeper from Forttuna Sittard from early in the transfer window, but it has taken until now for international clearance to be granted.

Pandur has signed a three-and-a-half-year contract with the option of a further 12 months.