Liam Rosenior praised his resilient defence as resurgent Hull took a point in a goalless draw at Stoke.
The Tigers recorded a third successive Sky Bet Championship clean sheet for the first time since January 2022 as their strong form continues.
Since Rosenior’s arrival in November, Hull have lost only two of their 13 league games.
Aaron Connolly twice came close to putting the visitors in front, but he flashed a strike wide and scooped an effort over.
A hard-fought point in the Potteries elevates the East Yorkshire outfit to 11th place, five points beneath the play-off places.
“It was a hard-earned and battling point away from home,” Rosenior said. “I think they paid us a big compliment by trying to stop us from playing our football.
“I have to give credit to every single player because we looked so organised, so disciplined and so resilient.
“That’s a side of the game you need in the Championship.
“When we have the ball, every player’s an attacker. When we don’t, every player’s a defender.
“There’s no change in your role wherever you are; Oscar (Estupinan) epitomises that when he defends from the front, and they’ve all bought into that mentality.
“Hopefully that mentality will stay because we’re proving to be a very difficult team to beat.
“We’ve lost one game in 10 and kept three clean sheets in a row, and that gives us the basis to do well in this league.”
Rosenior also expressed sympathy for the victims of the earthquake in Turkey.
“We’ve got a lot of players who have played out in Turkey; it’s affected us massively,” he said.
“It’s so sad what has happened; it’s beyond a disaster and it’s really affected the group.
“We wanted to put on a performance today that did an amazing country proud and I think we did that in terms of our spirit and character.”
Meanwhile, Stoke’s dismal form continues with one victory from seven league matches as they slump closer to the drop zone.
However, a successive home league clean sheet for the first time this season offered some encouragement for Alex Neil.
He said: “It gives us a platform and an opportunity to pick points up. I think we’ll build confidence from that.
“At least if you’re secure, you know you can work on being more aggressive and more attacking and creating more chances.
“When you’re leaking goals and not scoring you’ve got two areas to fix, so the fact that we’ve done that is pleasing, but you’re always going to be greedy, so that’s the next step.
“I thought we started really well; I thought the game was bright to start with.
“We had a lot of opportunities in that first 25-minute period, so we’ve got to punish them at least once.
“I thought we were really aggressive in our approach, and I was really pleased with the first half.
“Second half, it was really even without either team creating an unbelievable chance.
“They’ve been a good side recently, they’re one of the form teams in the league and I feel we’ve more than matched them and maybe even shaded it.
“The finer details are what has not got us the result today, but I thought the effort was excellent.
“But I thought we didn’t use the ball as well as we could, though.”
