Cardiff City boss Omer Riza hailed the defensive rearguard action from his side as they saw off Hull City by Callum Robinson's goal to nil in the battle of the two teams trying to move clear of the relegation zone.

This 1-0 success moved the Bluebirds six points clear of the drop zone and left City perched precariously above it with only a three-point gap to those in the bottom three with 12 games left.

In a poor encounter between two struggling teams, Cardiff hit the front early in the second half after the Tigers failed to deal with a cross into their box, and in truth, then hosts were rarely troubled.

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Shot-shy City managed just four attempts in the entire game and had to wait until the 82nd minute for their first on-target when Alfie Jones headed straight at Ethan Horvath from Abu Kamara's pinpoint cross six yards out.

“We've done a great job. We've kept a clean sheet and we were really fantastic defensively," Riza told reporters. “I’m relieved; we needed it. I think we knew that, the players knew that, the staff knew that. We've come close on a few occasions and not managed to do it against teams around us.

“I think we did what we needed to do and that's important as well. It shows that resilience, that togetherness. We've just got to keep maintaining a self-belief, work ethic, principles, values and all of those things.

“Three points against Hull gives us that six-point gap at the minute. It wasn’t pretty but three points is three points. We're just happy to grind out a result and an important win.”