Hull head coach Ruben Selles showed again how he has turned his side into a tougher nut to crack on their travels as they claimed another vital away win at Millwall.
Selles has had just over a month to get to know his squad, which had sunk into relegation trouble under predecessor Tim Walter.
Clean sheets had become a rare thing for the Tigers, but this was their second in a row on the road, following their triumph at Blackburn just after Christmas, against an admittedly shot-shy Millwall.
It was one of the Lions’ number that proved to be Hull’s match-winner as Jake Cooper’s own goal gifted the visitors a vital three points and a 1-0 win.
Selles said: “I think coming here and getting the three points, and getting a good result, is always difficult and I think the result was good, the performance was good and we’re happy.
“We’re doing it in the way we want to do it.
“We’re building some things like trying to control the game, trying to be intense, trying to be aggressive, trying to keep the [defensive] line high, away from our goal, so I think we are going in the correct direction.
“I think we cannot ask for more today.
“I think the feeling with them was the atmosphere our fans created was amazing today, in a place like this where you can really feel the football environment.
“From the very beginning, they were helping with that, supporting us home and away, and today I hoped they enjoyed it because the support was massive and we always feel it when they are there.”
It speaks volumes about Millwall’s performance that Mihailo Ivanovic’s header from Joe Bryan’s free-kick in the third minute, which was held by Hull goalkeeper Carl Rushworth, was the closest they came to scoring all game.
Hull’s best opening of the first half came when Joao Pedro’s pass put Abu Kamara through on goal only for him to be denied by a good save by Lions ‘keeper Lukas Jensen.
A scrappy contest was settled in the 58th minute when Regan Slater’s low ball into the box was turned into his own net by Millwall captain Cooper.
Millwall boss Alex Neil, who saw joint-top scorer Romain Esse sold to Crystal Palace on Saturday morning, said: “Ultimately the game got decided on a cross that hit one of our lads’ heels and deflects in at the front post, and it ends up being the winning goal.
“From that perspective, it’s really, really frustrating because if you get done with a bit of quality or if you get done by them performing better and creating numerous opportunities to comfortably win the game, you go ‘OK, we need to be better.’
“But it was a scrappy game decided on an unfortunate moment for us, in my opinion.
“We’re stretched at the top end of the pitch – I think anybody can see that.
“We’ve just sold Romain for a lot of money, we’ve got Femi [Azeez] who’s currently not available for us just now.
“We’ve got Calum Scanlon who’s literally trained for one week, and he’s a left-back and I’ve got him playing left wing, so it’s not easy.”
