Hull City boss makes remarkable admission in verdict on vital Sunderland win

Liam Rosenior admitted his side had produced their worst footballing performance of the season in beating Sunderland at the Stadium of Light.

Rosenior's side were missing a host of key players for the game, with a number of players who had faced the Black Cats on Boxing Day sidelined due to injury, loan recalls and the African Cup of Nations. Sunderland dominated possession and territory as a result but struggled to carve out regular chances, with Fabio Carvalho's deflected effort midway through the second half proving the difference between the two sides.

That was one of Hull's only attacks of the second half but Rosenior said it was a night when given the number of players absent, his team had to show a different side to their game. While admitting that he didn't enjoy seeing so many of his players booked, many of them for stopping Sunderland counterattacks, he was pleased with the 'nous' they showed.

"All we spoke about in the week building up to the game was about spirit, togetherness and mentality, and the boys were magnificent," Rosenior said.

"It's probably in terms of our football performance probably worst of the lot. My job is to try and combine the two because if you can do that, you can have a really successful season in the Championship. It was really pleasing to grind out a game to do the basics.

"I don't like the fact that my players get booked, but sometimes you have to, you have to show a little bit of nous and I've been trying to get that into the group. We've got a really young team. You go through Matty Jacob, it was Matty Jacob's first away game (start) in the Championship. So to come like a place to a place like this and perform in the manner that he did is all credit to them again. We're learning on the job. We're learning as we go and we've got to work out how to win games when we're not at our best. 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 40,000 people when everything feels like it's 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 times, and been on the wrong side of results when we deserve to win. It's easy for a group to lose belief and lose faith in what we're doing, but they showed, they still believe they showed us their faith in each other. They showed they were still willing to work for each other. I think every single player was magnificent in terms of their engagement to the game."

Hull's win saw them leapfrog Sunderland in the table and go two points clear of Michael Beale's side, though they could drop out of the final play-off spot depending on the results of Saturday's fixtures.