Clucas insists Hull confidence remains high

It’s not often you ship four goals at home against Arsenal and named man-of-the-match, that’s exactly what happened to Hull Coty’s Sam Clucas at the weekend.

The Tigers slumped to a 4-1 loss against Arsene Wenger’s side after midfielder Jake Livermore was sent off, but Clucas still shined in the rout.

The 25-year-old operated in defence and then latterly in midfield, shackling Alexis Sanchez and Mesut Ozil for large parts of the game.

Tipped for relegation before the season started, Hull have enjoyed a fantastic start to the campaign with caretaker boss Mike Phelan reportedly set to take the Tigers’ reins on a full-time basis this week.

Photo by Alex Morton/Getty Images

Despite their first mauling of the season, Clucas insists Hull’s bubble won’t burst as City look to keep the feel good factor going.

“We played some nice football in the first half and created a few chances, but the red card put us on the back foot,” he said.

“We’re disappointed with the result but there is confidence in this squad and that has been there since the start of the season.

“Mike Phelan gets a lot of credit for that. He has given us the confidence to take the ball out from the back and play. We played some nice stuff on Saturday.

“People wrote us off before the game, and in some ways it was a free hit against Arsenal.

“But we set the standard for performance against Manchester United last month and we wanted to hit that again.”