Hull City boss Grant McCann hit out at his players for their first half performance as they went out of the League Cup to Preston last night.

It's been a mixed start to the Championship season, with defeats in the last two matches leaving the Tigers in 20th position.

McCann will be disappointed with the current place in the table after his side put in some good displays in the first three games. A draw at Brentford, and a victory over Reading were the highlights.

And, the Tigers were knocked out of the Carabao Cup on penalties last night at Deepdale having coming from two goals down to equalise in the 95th minute.

Speaking to HullLive, McCann explained how the slow start by his team had angered him though.

“I was shell-shocked, the first half shell-shocked me a little bit, I didn’t recognise what I was seeing. We looked a little bit like we were playing with fear. That’s not me, my teams don’t play with fear, they play with expression and trying to play on the front foot and we saw that in the second half.

"No confidence (issue). This group had nothing to fear and to be honest, we have nothing to fear in every game we go into. I think we have shown in every single game and for large periods of games how good we can be and I thought we showed that in the second half.”

The Verdict

The manager is clearly not happy with what went on in the first half display and you can understand why as Hull were outplayed and very fortunate to go in just a goal down.

However, to get the response he did from the group will have pleased the manager and it shows his team-talk worked well.

He now has to do all he can to ensure the standards don't slip again - starting with Saturday's huge game at Millwall.