Monday 29 December 2014 08:21, UK
Steve Bruce refused to criticise his Hull City side despite their wastefulness in front of goal during the 1-0 home defeat to fellow strugglers Leicester City.
Riyad Mahrez’s strike on the half-hour mark proved to be the game’s deciding moment after Hull spurned a number of glorious opportunities to get something out of a game which saw Leicester defender Paul Konchesky and Tigers midfielder Stephen Quinn see red.
But Bruce stopped short of attributing the blame solely to his players and, instead, praised them for their dominant performance at the KC Stadium.
“You could say that it was one of those days where a manager goes through the whole range of the emotions because we simply didn’t deserve to lose,” Bruce told Sky Sports.
“I think Leicester had one shot on goal which they scored from and after that we’ve had more chances in a game that I can remember for a long time. Unfortunately we’ve hit the post and they’ve got two or three off the line and it’s ended up as one of those horrible, frustrating ones
“We didn’t deserve to lose but we didn’t take the chances and Leicester had a little bit of luck went their way today.
“The players have given everything they’ve got. The way they responded to going 1-0 down, they were relentless and I don’t think Leicester got in our half in the second half but you have to score, it’s as simple as that.
“That’s why strikers are a lot of money and unfortunately today we’ve missed too many big chances and at this level you cannot afford to do that because you don’t get that many usually.”
Hull missed the opportunity to claim back-to-back wins for the first time this season, after their Boxing Day win away to Sunderland.
And Bruce explained he was confident his fielding of the same team would yield the same result seen at the Stadium of Light.
“It was always on my mind when you play at this level, whether I had to turn us around and freshen us up a little bit,” Bruce added.
“But when you go away from home and win 3-1 if I was going to leave people out I think they might have been scratching their heads. We had some fresh legs on the bench and the second half in particular, there was an onslaught.
“But you’ve got to take them chances at this level. We’ve had five, six or seven wonderful opportunities and we should be taking them.
“On another day we could have scored three or four but to miss them like we did makes this one of those awful afternoons.”
Bruce confirmed the club would be appealing the red card shown to midfielder Quinn after Phil Dowd adjudged him to have deliberately handled the ball.
“Quinn’s red card didn’t make any difference to the game but it looked too soft for me there’s no way that is deliberate handball and preventing a goalscoring opportunity,” Bruce said.
“We’ll have a look at it and Phil [Dowd] may have a look at it and see if there are grounds for appeal because I don’t think it was intentional.”
