Kevin Kilbane admits Hull City cannot afford to dwell on the past and must continue to look forward.
Tigers ace sets his sights on survival
Kevin Kilbane admits Hull City cannot afford to dwell on the past and must continue to look forward.
The Tigers suffered a heartbreaking 3-2 defeat away at fellow strugglers Portsmouth on Saturday, having led 2-1 with two minutes remaining, ruining Iain Dowie's first game in charge.
The result also keeps Hull inside the Premier League relegation zone, three points from safety with eight games remaining.
Time is ticking down on their efforts to pull clear of trouble, but Kilbane knows it is imperative that everyone connected with the club continues to pull in the same direction.
"Any defeat in those sorts of circumstances is a big blow," Kilbane told the
Hull Daily Mail in the wake of the Pompey defeat.
"To lose a game like that is heart-breaking for us. The manager said to us after the game that we've got a big week coming up with a huge home game and the sooner we start winning games the better for us.
"That's all we can start doing now, we have to get it out of our system as soon as possible.
"To score two goals and then get beat in the manner in which we did is obviously a big disappointment, you can't avoid that. But Monday morning has to be a fresh week looking forward."
Enthusiastic
Phil Brown paid the price for a string of poor performances when he was axed at the KC Stadium last week, but Kilbane feels Dowie is an ideal candidate to take the reins and guide the Tigers to safety.
"The manager's come in and said that we'll be working on team shape and having some hard weeks, and in fairness that's the way I'd like it anyway," added the Republic of Ireland international.
"He's a really enthusiastic guy at the training ground and over the coming weeks the lads will respond to that definitely.
"We need to be hard to beat more than anything in this league and if we can stay in games for as long as possible, we do have a little bit of firepower to score goals.
"We've managed to come away with nothing after leading late in the game and you can't really afford to do that in this league because it's going to come back and bite you."
