The Tigers know only wins will help their faint hopes of a top six finish.

Sean McLoughlin says Hull City’s players remain bullish about their prospects of finishing the season in the Championship’s top six.

The Tigers ended their four-game winless run with three crucial points against West Brom last Friday night but remain 10 points adrift of six-placed Norwich City with just 11 games of the season left.

After beating Cardiff last month, the gap between themselves and the play-off zone was reduced to four points before two defeats and two draws hit their hopes significantly, and that gap increased to double figures.

City are 13th in the table and with plenty of traffic sitting between themselves and the top six, that task looks somewhat challenging with Liam Rosenior’s men realistically needing eight wins from their remaining 11 to have any hope of closing down that gap.

One thing in their favour is that eight of their remaining 11 games come against sides above them in the table, and McLoughlin says belief in the dressing room remains high that they can prove the doubters wrong.

“I remember we couldn’t win at home, and it has brilliant. We’re looking forward to the game next week and our aim between now and the end of the season is to get into the play-offs,” the in-form defender told Hull Live.

“People are probably writing us off but we always believe in ourselves, stranger things have happened so we’ll see what happens.”

The Sky Blues have notched four wins in their last five games and thrashed struggling Huddersfield Town 4-0 on Saturday, however, victory in Coventry would see the Tigers move to within four points of their hosts, who themselves are within one success of that play-off pack.

“Yes, one hundred percent,” the Irishman said when challenged if that was still a realistic aim. “We believe in our abilities, we believe in the manager, he believes in us and we’ve shown we can beat teams above us.

“We have tough games but we’ve shown we can beat teams above us, so why can’t we go and do that for the rest of the season?

“I think we’re capable of doing that. West Brom are one of the best teams in the league, we’ve got a great 2-0 result so why can’t we do that for the rest of the season?

“I feel like we need to believe in ourselves, go out there with no fear and see what happens.”