Hull boss Adkins hails resilience after beating Birmingham

Nigel Adkins hailed Hull’s resilience after they reached 50 points for the season just a week after a heavy defeat at Brentford.

Seven days after being beaten 5-1 at Griffin Park, the Tigers defeated fellow play-off contenders Birmingham 2-0 to add to a 2-1 home victory over Millwall at the KCOM Stadium on Tuesday.

Jarrod Bowen scored both goals against the Blues to take them level with Garry Monk’s team and just four below Bristol City in the final play-off spot in the Sky Bet Championship table.

Hull head coach Adkins said: “We are still in the race. Seven days ago everybody was feeling in a different way because we had just had a heavy defeat at Brentford.

“The big thing is we’ve got more points than we had last season. We’ve at least got another season in the Championship next season.”

Adkins added: “I thought it was an exciting game, we played really good football. It’s great to see Jarrod Bowen score two goals.

“There were some really good individual performances and collectively as a team we played some really good football.

“Another victory at home. The whole team contributed. It puts us on 50 points which is always a poignant points total in the season.”

Bowen opened the scoring when he made the most of Marc Pugh’s persistence to fire into the roof of the net from close range after 23 minutes.

The winger added his second with almost an hour gone when his run drew a foul from Lee Camp and he then sent the Birmingham goalkeeper the wrong way from the penalty spot.

Bowen and Pugh had chances to add more goals against a Birmingham side who rarely threatened.

Their best chances fell to Che Adams who shot into the side-netting from a tight angle in the second half and a late shot from substitute Jacques Maghoma who drew a save out of David Marshall with his low effort from the edge of the area.

Birmingham manager Monk admitted successive away games at Bristol City and Hull in the space of five days had taken their toll.

He said: “I think it was a slightly jaded performance from us. The week that we’ve had has been a big demand on the players.

“Today we were just below our usual levels we showed in the last two games.”

Birmingham had drawn at home to Blackburn before a win at Bristol City had breathed new life into their promotion push but found Hull too good for them.

Monk added: “There are no excuses. We are not the type of team who can be below our levels physically or mentally and get away with results.

“It’s a very difficult league to be at your maximum in every single game.

“We’ve had a huge demand on this squad all season, this week was a big demand again.

“It was pretty much the whole team (who were below par) today and unfortunately it cost us.”

Maxime Colin was taken off in the second half with a hamstring injury and Monk admitted he did not know if the defender would be fit for the derby match with Aston Villa next weekend.