Hull boss Tim Walter was surprisingly positive about his team’s performance despite a 2-0 defeat at home to Sheffield United.
The hosts were punished by devastating counter-attacks as they failed to defend their own corners as the clinical Blades put them to the sword.
United took a 15-minute lead when Mohamed Belloumi was pickpocketed when he was the last line of defence in the opposition half by Callum O’Hare before laying on to Gustavo Hamer to slot into the far corner.
In an almost carbon copy of the opener, United sealed the three points when the visitors broke after clearing another corner, with Andre Brooks teeing up fellow substitute Sam McCallum to fire home with 23 minutes remaining.
Walter promised to bring “heart-attack football” after his appointment in the summer – which owner Acun Ilicali craved – but the Tigers have scored just twice in the league, with only one in open play.
The German remains without a win in five Sky Bet Championship matches, but he is confident results will turn around in the near future.
“I’m happy about our performance because we showed so many things,” Walter said. “Maybe we can play a better finishing pass, especially in the first half we had so many chances to score but we didn’t.
“If you make easy mistakes, you will lose this game. But it depends on us and that’s the good thing. Everything depends on us, how we perform with the ball and against the ball.
“I’m happy and proud of the boys because until the end they kept going to score, but unfortunately we didn’t. At the end, we lost the game because we did the mistakes.
“They were easy mistakes. I don’t think only Sheffield United can score out of these mistakes, everybody can score out of these mistakes.
“Today was a restart because everybody is in and we can speak about the style, and speak about the game.
“I’m really confident and you can see. I’m convinced of my team and the performance of how we played. You can say it’s a bad result, but the way we play I think was a good way.
“It’s all about principles, everything we are doing is about principles.”
United boss Chris Wilder believed the match was closer than the scoreline suggested and he was delighted to get the “job done” as the Blades climbed up to third after maintaining their unbeaten start to the campaign.
“Different ways to win football matches. I don’t think it was the most free-flowing performance for us, I think we played a lot better in the last four games,” Wilder said.
“It is a young team, it is learning so it will be a great experience for them. I thought we saw the game out well.
“It’s well-documented how they play and they give you a chance and they gave us chances. I’m just disappointed that when they gave us the chance, we weren’t better and more clinical.
“Like I talked about at full-time – Championship football, whatever it takes to get a result. Fish and chip paper and all that stuff on Monday morning.
“We’ve got a job done. We can play a lot better, it can’t be our standard performance, which I don’t think it will be.”
