The Tigers fought back to draw 2-2 with in-form Preston North End leaving Paul Heckingbottom unhappy
Paul Heckingbottom claims Hull City players admitted to him Preston should have been awarded a penalty in Tuesday night’s 2-2 draw at the MKM Stadium.
Eventually the points were shared between the Tigers and North End but only after a topsy-turvy encounter that left both teams feeling they should have had more.
The visitors raced into an early two goal lead through Thierry Small and Michael Smith, only for Sergej Jakirović’s half time changes to pay dividends through and Oli McBurnie brace.
However, there was an incident towards the end when Joe Gelhardt seemed to pull down Jordan Storey, only for referee Josh Smith to wave play on.
Heckingbottom believes that was wrong and said: “Well, everyone’s telling me we should have, even the fourth (official), their players as well,” he told the Lancashire Post.
“But I think we’ve got different criteria when we’ve got Josh as referee for us to be awarded a penalty.
“That’s how it seems, if what everyone’s telling me is correct.
“I’m a long way away; I’m going off what everyone’s told me afterwards.
“We could’ve won that game, 3-2, 4-2. And we’d be sitting here pleased because we’ve got the three points and that’s what it’s all about.
“But we’d still be looking at those moments where we need to be better.”
Overall Heckingbottom felt his side deserved the win.
“The fact that we’re so disappointed having come here shows how far we’ve come. We gave them their first goal and we recovered well and passed the ball well, probably better then towards the end.
“We were very good without the ball though and the players executed the game plan, were really clinical and ferocious without the ball and were really comfortable with Hull playing in front of us.
“As well as we’ve been defending, those two moments have killed us. We’ve allowed Ryan Giles to get in behind us, which we spoke about.
“Then Linds [Liam Lindsay] has tried to deal with Oli McBurnie outside the box – instead of just being in the space. That was it. The second goal was virtually a carbon copy; we’ve been really impressive in those situations up until now.”
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