Alex Neil believes Hull City's intensity is one of the key reasons the Tigers were triumphant against his Millwall side on Saturday at The Den.

Playing with an intensive press is one of Ruben Selles' key demands of his Tigers side and it was evident against the Lions, who were beaten by Jake Cooper's own goal just before the hour mark, after a lung-bursting run from Regan Slater.

Neil also highlighted the important job done by City's midfield trio of Steven Alzate, Gustavo Puerta and Slater, in shutting off the supply line through the middle of the park.

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“It was a scrappy game. We set up differently for a couple of reasons," the Scotsman said. "Watching Hull, the best way to try and play around Hull – because they press from out to in and try to shut central areas off – you need to play outside of them.

“When we did get the ball down via the wing-backs we looked threatening. But if you are going to play that way you need an element of control, which means making some passes to take the sting out of their press. We didn’t do that. We turned the ball from front to back too often and it became a transition game. When that happens they have naturally got wingers in high positions and they are playing off the side of your centre-backs.

“What it did mean when we picked the ball up is we had more volume attacks going forward. We looked more threatening. We had a couple of decent chances in the first half and so did they. I felt towards the end of the first half they looked more likely to score than we did, that’s why I changed it at half-time to more match it up and make it a more conventional Millwall – so that it is a man-for-man battle.

“If I’m being honest, if we are going to play that way, you normally have a target you are going to play up to and work around. Milo is not really a target – he is more of a runner. That is his strength. Listen, we are stretched at the top end of the pitch. I think anyone can see that.

“We’ve just sold Romain for a lot of money and we’ve got Femi who is not available for us right now. Calum Scanlon has literally trained for one week and I’ve got his left wing. It’s not easy but the game got decided on a cross which hit one of our lad’s heels and deflects in at the front post. From that perspective, it is really, really frustrating because if you get done with a bit of quality or the opposition performing better and they should comfortably win the game, then you go: ‘We need to be better’. But it was a scrappy game decided by an unfortunate moment.”