Bruce Thrilled With Leicester Win

Manager Steve Bruce has declared his delight following Hull’s penalty shootout victory over Leicester City last night in the Capital One Cup.

Audio – Leicester Win Delights Bruce

Putting Hull through to the quarter finals of the competition for the first time, a pleased managed explained to the Official Site in his post game press conference that it was a deserved victory for him given how the team kept plugging away.

‘We`re delighted. It felt like it was going to be one of those nights with one or two major decisions going against us. But we`ve got through and we deserved to go through. The way we played, particularly in the first half, in terms of keeping possession and our movement, I thought we were terrific. We made eight changes tonight and they`ve given me a huge headache because they`ve reminded me what a good squad of players we`ve got. Ryan Taylor put in a terrific performance, it was probably Tom Huddlestone`s best performance for a long time and Isaac Hayden did very well too. Overall, I thought they all played terrific, and of course we had young Greg Luer at the top end of the pitch who could have scored after three minutes. A year ago, he was playing for Burgess Hill Town.’

Bruce went on to say that if you’re going to be successful in the game you need a squad of players that are willing to fight for each other and come in when called upon and do a job and he felt the lads last night more than did that with the resilience and determination they showed.

As for the penalties themselves, with Eldin Jakupovic picking up the save, he added.

‘It was a wonderful set of penalties from us, too, and the players made it look easy, which it never is. And Eldin came up with a great save. He`s had many dark moments here and has had to wait patiently for his chance. He`s kept knocking on the door and tonight he`s shown what an adequate keeper he is and I`m delighted for him.’

Shaun Maloney was also interviewed after the game and he explained.

‘I thought we should have had a penalty when Chuba went down and we felt a couple of decisions went against us. But there`s no point going through that now. We took the game to penalties and held our nerve. It`s all about how you deal with the situation when you get to that point and we did it well. Eldin saved their first penalty and we were faultless. It`s not often you see five from five in a shoot-out but credit has to go to Eldin, and to David Meyler for holding his nerve with the last penalty.’

As for the overall performance over the 90 minutes and then extra time, Maloney went on to say that both sides had their periods in the match but he felt it was finely balanced so when we did pull ourselves from a goal down he felt it was thoroughly deserved.

‘There were patches where we played quite well, although it was a pretty even game. We dominated the first half, but Leicester made it difficult for us in the second half because they narrowed the space and looked to break on us. But it`s a really pleasing result after all of the effort we put into it.’

With the draw up tonight now for the quarter finals, he added.

‘You can`t control who you`re going to get, but a home tie would be favourable. But even if we`re away, it`s cup football and anything can happen on the day.’

Harry Maguire was also briefly interviewed, and he wanted a home draw aswell.

‘Obviously another home tie would be great, maybe against a Championship club. Looking at the results so far, Sheffield Wednesday would be nice but then you look at how they knocked Arsenal out last night. Whoever we get will be a tough game, but we`d fancy our chances against anyone at the KC.’

With the game being his first start since the third round victory over Swansea, he went on to say of the game.

‘It`s a great achievement for the lads to take this club to the quarter-finals for the first time. It was a tough night against a side flying high in the Premier League but I felt as though we deserved the win. We had a couple of opportunities to take the lead but then they hit us on the counter-attack to go in front themselves. That was a sucker-punch but we fought back strongly and it was a great result in the end. The manager made a lot of changes to the side, but we all put a great shift in and everybody worked their socks off.’