Sam Clucas adamant Hull City have the ammunition to survive

They breathed fresh life into their survival fight at the weekend with a timely 2-1 win over Swansea City.

It was enough to nudge Hull up a place in the table to third bottom and to within one victory of three relegation rivals.

Oumar Niasse was the hero after coming off the bench to net a double that took his goal tally to four from 10 appearances, putting the Senegalese joint second in the club’s scoring charts alongside Abel Hernandez and Michael Dawson.

Snodgrass, despite leaving the KCOM Stadium in January to join West Ham United for £10m, remains out in front with nine goals. Four assists in league and Cup meant, for a time, that the Scot had played a leading role in more than a half of Hull’s goal output.

“We have been talking about that in recent weeks,” said the midfielder when asked about the scoring vacuum created by Snodgrass’s departure to East London.

“As a team, we need to get more goals from different areas of the pitch because we can’t just rely on Abel – or Snod’s goals from earlier in the season – to get through.

“We need to chip in. We need to spread the goals out and are working on that in training. Hopefully, it will continue to come to the fore in the games to come.

“Oumar has been massive (in that respect). He is full of confidence. Him arriving has been good for us because we didn’t have that strength in depth (beforehand), strikers coming off the bench. Especially when Abel was injured.

“It is nice there is that competition for places now and it is paying off because people are coming off the bench hungry, like he (Niasse) was against Swansea.”

Goalscoring has been a major problem for the Tigers since their return to the top flight. Even with Niasse’s double taking Hull’s recent return to six from their last four outings, Marco Silva’s men still have the third lowest tally of 26 in the Premier League, ahead only of Middlesbrough (19) and Sunderland (24).

Saturday’s opponents, Everton, in contrast, have almost double Hull’s tally with 47 from 28 games.

The trip to Goodison Park will have to be made without Niasse, who cannot play under the terms of his loan switch in January.

He will be missed, as the Tigers look to improve a wretched record on the road that has seen just one point collected from a possible 36.

Improving on such a paltry return is imperative, as there is a danger that too much reliance will be put on the club’s form at the KCOM during a run-in that sees West Ham, Middlesbrough, Watford and Sunderland all visit the East Riding before Tottenham bring the curtain down on the final day.

So far, Hull have been hugely impressive under Silva on home soil with his six league and cup outings yielding five wins and a 1-1 draw against Burnley.

Factoring in his time with Olympiacos in Greece, the Portuguese has now gone 38 league games unbeaten at home and Clucas believes the head coach deserves huge credit for his work so far in Yorkshire.

“Since he has come in, he has tried to put his philosophy on the game – making sure we keep the ball, try to dominate possession and try to play out from the back,” added the midfielder, who earlier this month completed the notable feat of scoring in the top five divisions of English football in consecutive seasons.

“We stick to that, no matter what. Even if we go 1-0 down, we stick to our guns and we play like that. Hopefully, we then get the points.

“Our home form has been good and it is vitally important we keep it going. We have got five games left at home and, if we win all of them, we have got a hell of a chance of staying up.

“We need to build on the Swansea performance and keep putting more points on the board because other teams around us are starting to do that as well. It is in our hands.

“What gives us confidence is we have got teams (to play) who are in and around us, and fighting in the relegation zone as well. These games are massive for us, especially when we try to claw a couple of teams in.

“Beating Swansea was massive, especially after not getting anything (the previous weekend) against Leicester. It was vital to start putting points on the board and that was a good start.

“We just have to keep getting three points, look after ourselves and see what happens at the end of the season.”

As for his own debut season in the Premier League, Clucas added: “I am loving it. As long as I am playing, I don’t care where I play.

“The gaffer obviously trusts me in various positions, which is always nice.

“I really enjoyed playing holding midfield at the start of the season, but I am happy to push on a little bit and try to grab a goal, like I did last week against Leicester. I am happy wherever I play.”