Barmby: celebrates McLean's winner

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Barmby talks up promotion

Hull caretaker boss Nick Barmby believes the Tigers have what it takes to challenge for promotion to the top-flight and wants to instil that belief into the players.

Hull beat Birmingham 2-1 on Wednesday night to move up to sixth place in the npower Championship as Barmby staked his claim for the manager’s job on a permanent basis with a third win out of five games.

“The ambition is to be up there,” he said. “The team we’ve got, they should be believing they can challenge and there’s no reason they can’t.

“If they show that application week in, week out they’ve got a great chance. But it’s a difficult league and you just need to be more consistent.

“We’ve asked them for consistency at home and they’ve managed to win the last two, which is pleasing.”

Aaron Mclean grabbed the winning goal midway through the second half, aided by some sloppy goalkeeping by Boaz Myhill.

Chris Wood had marked his birthday by giving the Blues a 1-0 half-time lead only for Robert Koren to restore parity soon after the restart.

“I’m really thrilled, it was an important win for us,” he added. “We spoke about back-to-back wins and how important it is to win with a game in hand and we’ve managed to do that.

“They’re a very good side, Birmingham, and it was pleasing to come back having gone a goal down as well.

“Our general play was good again, the desire of the players to go out there and win the game was very pleasing.

“We upped the tempo second half, put a lot of pressure on Birmingham, asked them some questions and I think the early goal settled the lads down.”