City to face one Hull of an in-fom side

Hull City will travel to face the bottom club in the Championship at the Ricoh Arena on Saturday in buoyant mood after a second successive impressive home win on Wednesday night.

Having seen off Leicester City and their former boss Nigel Pearson on Saturday, the Tigers beat Birmingham 2-1 to move into the play-off places and strengthen the job claims of caretaker manager Nick Barmby.

'The ambition [for Hull] is to be up there,' he said afterwards.

'The team we've got, they should be believing they can challenge and there's no reason they can't.

'If they show that application week in, week out they've got a great chance. But it's a difficult league and you just need to be more consistent.

'We've asked them for consistency at home and they've managed to win the last two, which is pleasing. I'm really thrilled, it was an important win for us tonight.'

The home side meanwhile know that time will soon begin to run out for them should they continue conceding suicidal goals such as those presented to Portsmouth last weekend.

"We know once we cut out the mistakes we will be at the other end of the table," said an optimistic skipper Sammy Clingan when talking to the official club website.

Click here to join in the debate on the club forum.