Substitute Andrew Moran’s second-half goal earned Stoke an important 2-1 win at fellow strugglers Hull.
Moran controlled and smartly followed up Lewis Koumas’ misdirected 74th-minute effort on goal to give Mark Robins a first league win since joining the Potters in January.
Eliot Matazo opened the scoring on his first start for the hosts but his sixth-minute strike was cancelled out by debutant Ali Al-Hamadi just before half-time.
Hull have the worst home record in the Championship – they have won just twice at the MKM Stadium this season – and are now just two points above the relegation zone following Moran’s match-winning intervention.
Stoke’s away form makes similarly grim reading and Robins must have feared the worst following such a careless early concession.
Lynden Gooch was outmuscled by Sean McLoughlin at the back post from Hull’s well-worked short corner that was taken by Matazo.
The football should not have been allowed to skid across the six-yard box, from where Matazo scored from a tight angle.
Suitably inspired, the home side threatened to cut loose and Matazo really ought to have scored a second after 20 minutes.
A hopeful long ball was superbly controlled by Joao Pedro, whose smart cut-back inside the penalty area was wastefully scuffed into Viktor Johansson’s chest by the £2million signing from Monaco.
Robins will, however, be most heartened by Stoke’s recovery following Hull’s mini-onslaught.
Indeed, he will have been even happier by their equaliser after 43 minutes.
Tatsuki Seko sent over a rather ambitious lofted cross from the right that required Cody Drameh to make a routine clearance.
But Drameh got the ball tangled under his left boot, which gifted Al-Hamadi an unmissable chance.
The Iraq international also played a significant role in Stoke’s glorious early second-half chance when he ghosted past Matty Jacobs before squaring the ball to Josh Wilson-Esbrand.
Wilson-Esbrand looked to have bundled his side into the lead but Drameh atoned for his earlier mistake with a brilliant goal-line clearance.
Perhaps galvanised by that let-off, Pedro, Matazo and McLoughlin went close as Hull regained momentum.
But Stoke showed a defensive fortitude that was missing at the start of the match and grew into the game – most notably once Hull made a 54th-minute triple substitution that was to the detriment of their performance.
Even so, an away win did not feel likely during a second half in which attrition superseded adventure.
That was until Moran, who replaced Al-Hamadi on the hour, scored with his first meaningful moment of the game.
Koumas was surely trying to shoot at the back post but the ball fizzed into the feet of Moran, who briskly controlled and scored from a central position.
Hull had their moments thereafter and could have equalised at the death when Johansson smothered McLoughlin’s one-on-one effort just outside the six-yard box.
But Stoke held firm when it mattered to move five points clear of the bottom three.
