Alfie Jones admits there was a lot of anger and frustration inside Hull City’s dressing room after they gifted three points to Middlesbrough on Wednesday night, and says it’s vital the Tigers look to respond against Leeds United this afternoon.
City were well below-par after a busy run of games over the festive period, but looked to have done enough to grab a valuable point and second successive clean sheet for the first time this season, before disaster struck in the 93rd minute when Alex Gilbert converted Delano Burgzorg’s cross.
It was another defensive error and a carbon copy of the goal City conceded in the 1-0 loss at Preston on Boxing Day. It was one which left the dressing room flat, albeit an unhappy one, according to Jones.
“It’s obviously very flat,” Jones said of the Tigers’ dressing room. “There’s a lot of frustration, a lot of anger. Defending that hard for that long, keeping them out for that long and then conceding a goal like that is the most frustrating thing.
“We were nowhere near our best, so a point would have been a very good point. They controlled the game, we can’t say that we had any real foothold in the game. We defended a lot, but we defended well, so to take a point would have been positive and at the moment, we just can’t get that momentum together. It’s almost taking one step forward and two steps back.
“Every game now, we need to fight for; we need to fight for every point and there’s no reason why we can’t go and beat Leeds, we just need to be a lot better. We’ll go for the win.”
Few outside of the Tigers dressing room will give Ruben Selles’ side much of a chance against the table-topping Whites, but Jones says a good starting point to being more competitive will be getting the press right and building from there.
“I think no one expects us to win, but that gives us that motivation to go and win,” he continued. “We need to fight for every point now, we need to start getting points. I think we definitely need to get the press right because I don’t think we got the press right (against Boro). We couldn’t couldn’t really get near them, and they had gaps to play in, which obviously they’re good at, so they played through us too many times.
“We need to be more on the press, and we definitely need to have more spells in possession, keep the ball; we need to be a lot better with the ball, and when we win it back, we have to take care of it.”
That defeat has left City back in the bottom three with 21 games of the season left to play. Alhough the Tigers are without a host of influential players, Jones says there will be no excuses.
“Once you’re down there, it’s tough,” he admitted. “Things go against you, but we need to keep plugging away. We can’t make excuses, we need to move on to the next game quickly, and it needs to be a real team effort.”