Paul Heckingbottom acknowledged Preston were not at their best but was delighted with the 1-0 victory at home to Hull.
Brad Potts scored his third goal of the season on the hour to earn his side their first win at home since Coventry on October 19.
Manager Heckingbottom said: “We’ve been far more dominant than that in so many games and only got a point, so I’m really pleased that we’ve come out on top when the margins are really fine.”
He added: “We weren’t too bothered if (Hull) did have the ball but I think we gave them too much respect at the start of the game.
“I felt we were just slightly off. We didn’t quite get to the ball and we were a little bit behind the press.
“We stood off them a little bit too much, or that might be credit to them, but then, as the first half wore on, we got better and had our moments but we needed to up it in the second half and I thought we did.
“Until the goal, we were building momentum which was really pleasing and then the goal was fantastic from our point of view. I’m really pleased with it. Then we had to defend well and we managed the game really well.”
Hull head coach Ruben Selles felt his team lacked a clinical edge in the final third but believes they gave a good account of themselves.
He said: “We created situations to score at least one goal and then in one moment we went 1-0 down and never recovered in terms of the score. I think we were competitive enough.”
The Tigers should have gone ahead early on when Regan Slater fluffed a glorious chance, but Selles opted to share the blame.
“We created situations, it’s not just the situation with Regan after five minutes,” he added. “We created other situations and we need to make it count, but we created the situations so we just need to work on the details.
“You come away from difficult games in difficult competitions and first of all we need to be competitive and second of all we need to win football matches.
“Without being competitive we are not going to win games. We need to continue developing that competitiveness and in games like today, when we have the opportunities, we have to make it count and then we’ll be in a better place.
“We have to try to not make excuses. We know we can do things. Now we have to do it to the very end.”
