Hull City manager Grant McCann insisted he wasn’t interested in “hard-luck stories” after his side’s valiant effort in a 2-0 defeat at Leeds United.

The Yorkshire derby was tied until a Jordy De Wijs own goal and an Ezgjan Alioski strike in the final 20 minutes gave Leeds the win to go top of the Championship.

There were positives to take from the game as Hull frustrated their high-flying opponents for much of the contest, but McCann was bitterly disappointed to have come out on the losing side and wanted no praise for a plucky defeat.

“I’m not interested in hard-luck stories and ‘unlucky Hull, you’ve done alright’. We’ve got zero points,” he insisted after the loss, which saw his team slip into the bottom half of the table.

Frustrating night for Tigers

“I was pleased with the performance, I thought we played well for large periods of the game. What we’d worked on, worked well, playing through and over their press and trying to get into dangerous areas,” he added.

“What we’ve showed this year is that when we get into those areas, we’re ruthless. Tonight we just didn’t take the chance. But for us to concede off probably Leeds’s first shot on target with the own goal was frustrating for us.

“But these are the things you get when you’ve got the confidence and momentum of Leeds, you get that bit of luck. For the second goal we thought we’d scored, we switched off for 20 seconds and it’s in the back of the net.”

And the Tigers boss feels for his Dutch defender after he inadvertently put Helder Costa’s cross past his own goalkeeper, George Long, for the opening goal.

He said: “I do feel for him. The two of them (De Wijs and centre-back partner James Burke) were outstanding playing against one of the best forwards in the league in (Patrick) Bamford, they didn’t give him much.

“But there’s nothing he could do about it, it’s just come off him and George is wrong-footed. It is what it is.”

Warm words from Bielsa

McCann revealed that he received warm words from his counterpart Marcelo Bielsa after the final whistle, but his competitive nature dictates that compliments are not enough to satisfy him.

“I really appreciate Marcelo Bielsa speaking to me afterwards and telling me how good we were, but we want to be told that when we win,” he said.

“Slaven Bilic came to us two or three weeks ago (after their 1-0 defeat to West Brom) telling us we’re an excellent team, one of the best they’ve played against, but we want that when we win. That’s what we need to get to.”

“We always take the positives but there’s areas where we can improve still. I feel as if we’re getting very close to what we can be.”