Hull City manager blames defeat against Sunderland to his players feeling tension of relegation

Marco Silva, Hull City manager, who lost his home game in Saturday’s 2-0 defeat against Sunderland has put it down to his players feeling the tension of a relegation run-in.
‘My home record is not important. What’s important is the result was not good,’ he said after his first home defeat personally in 42 matches, a run dating back to March 2014 when he was in charge of Portuguese club Estoril.

‘I said before the game that Sunderland wouldn’t be easy even though they were in last place in the table. I want to make it clear we didn’t play well but we didn’t deserve to lose.

‘We had many chances to finish in the box and I believed if we’d scored first, we would win.

‘But we lost our focus. Our players weren’t calm, they did everything too fast, and to do things fast and well is not easy.

‘It’s my job and my work every week to put our team in a calm way and have everything under control. We have showed this in some moments in the last months but today we didn’t achieve it. They played with big tension and both goals were from set pieces. You can’t do that at this level.’

‘It happens every week with our team,’ said Silva. ‘The penalty in the first half was clear. The goal was offside, again. There were too many things in one afternoon for us.’