Hull City’s injury woes have been extended with the news that highly-rated defender Charlie Hughes is set to miss at least the next six weeks through injury.

Losing Hughes for an extended period of time will come as a hammer blow to the young defender, and City, who are already without a flurry of key players.

Hughes felt his hamstring after training ahead of City’s Boxing Day defeat at Preston North End and therefore missed the 1-0 defeat which saw the Tigers drop back into the bottom three courtesy of Brad Potts' winner on the hour mark.

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Xavier Simons also missed the game having been feeling unwell over the past couple of days, but it's hoped he'll be back available for Sunday's trip to Blackburn Rovers.

"A couple of days ago, we finished the training, he felt fine, and he was going to take a shower, and then when he finished, he felt a little bit of tightness in his hamstring. We found a hamstring injury there that is going to be between six and eight weeks," Selles told Hull Live.

"We know that situations happen in football. With Charlie, it was not strange, but he didn't feel anything. He completed training, and it was just after he went for the shower that he felt a little bit of tightness in his hamstring.

"Listen, things happen, and we just need to carry on, and if Charlie's not there, Sean (McLoughlin) did a good job today, Alfie (Jones) did a good job today, and everyone needs to step up and be ready for the job."

Hughes joins Kasey Palmer, Liam Millar and Mohamed Belloumi on the sidelines, while Oscar Zambrano is banned, and Carl Rushworth is working his way back to fitness but isn't available yet.

Selles refuses to be downbeat about the players unavailable to him, admitting that if everyone had been fit, he might not have been at the MKM Stadium in the first place.

"You need to analyse the situation; probably with Liam (Millar) or (Mohamed) Belloumi not out of the team, the team will win more, and then we will not be here," he said. "Probably because if you see the statistics with both of them on the pitch, I think this team were competitive.

"The situation is always what it is, so we have more than 20 players in our squad. Everyone was signed or developing in the academy to be able to play competitive games and we need to make it work.

"If Charlie is not here or any other player is not here, things happen and then we need to carry and to be competitive. There's not going to be any excuse about it from me or from any other member of the technical staff about having not having players fit."

On the game itself, which saw City fail to take any of the numerous moments they had in front of goal, the Tigers boss felt the Tigers were worthy of something from Deepdale.

"It's only about the result. I think we feel backwards because we lost the game. I think we did enough in the game to get at least one point, but that doesn't count," the Spaniard explained.

"I think the team had personality. We played the game that we wanted to play, we created the situations to score at least one goal, and we didn't. And then in one action, we just went one down, and then we never recovered in terms of the score because I think we were competitive enough today."

City started on the front foot and should have gone in front after just five minutes when Regan Slater blazed over the bar from six yards after Joao Pedro's effort was well saved by Freddie Woodman, a miss they were left to rue.

"I think we create situations. It's not only the situation with Regan after five minutes; obviously he knows better than anybody that situation should go in the net," Selles continued.

"We create some other situations, and we need to make it count, and it's time for us to adjust those small details and put those situations in the net because when it happens against us, we get punished, so we need to start to make those situations count."