Cotterill hails character of players

Steve Cotterill conceded that events at Portsmouth had been hard but praised his players for their character following the 2-1 win at Hull. A David Nugent strike on the stroke of half-time put Pompey, who look set to avoid going out of business, 1-0 up at the KC Stadium before on-loan Wolves defender Greg Halford smashed home a 20 yard free-kick two minutes after the break.Veteran Hull midfielder Nicky Barmby pulled a goal back for the home side but they couldn't find an equaliser as Portsmouth held on.Cotterill said after the Championship contest: "It's been a difficult four months."The last 24 hours have compounded it a bit, but maybe that might get sorted. Thankfully, we can only concentrate on the football."I don't want to be a hero or a martyr because the players are pretty good."They're a solid bunch of lads. If it wasn't for the character of the players and how they are, my job might have been a bit more difficult."The players have heard all this before for the last 18 months. They've been banged on the head and things have been said about the club."But this is a proper football club with proper fans - not plastic fans - and proper people working in it."At the hotel the night before the game I asked the players if they were all in. If not, they needn't stay for their dinner and we'd make sure we took them back home."They all sat down and we all ate together. There were a few worried people. Some of the people that have been here last season might be battle-hardened to it."Some of the new lads were perhaps wondering where they were and took a bit more settling down than the ones who have been here a while."We agreed that for the sake of our fans, Hull City and football, even if something was going to happen to our club overnight, we had a duty to turn up and play the game."It was easy to screw up all the politics and throw that in the bin and get on with the football."It has been difficult. It was quite big news last night. There were a lot of people worried about their careers. Not just players, but people like our media guys, masseurs and coaches."It's a great club. It's got into bad waters through its own fault. We got into this situation, it's no-one else's fault. But we would like a break and we would like a go at getting out of it."That's not going to happen overnight. We are trying to do it properly, but I think a lot of neutrals are rooting for us."Hull manager Nigel Pearson struggled to find the positives as his side suffered their second home defeat in the space of a week.Pearson said: "There were some good things but we conceded two poor goals and it was another defeat."We lost a game that we shouldn't have lost, like the other night (against Sheffield United). We've had two games at home that we shouldn't have lost."I don't think the other side were particularly better than us."On referee Darren Deadman, who waved away two penalty appeals in the second half when Carl Dickinson appeared to handle the ball, Pearson added:"It would be wrong of me to blame someone else for our defeat, but having said that I would like to see honesty in terms of how things are done during the game."You can make up your own minds about the officials, but I've got my opinions and they are very strong and they know what I think of them. That's not to make excuses for us though."On the league position, Pearson added: "I'm very concerned, but the job's a little bit bigger than first anticipated in terms of things being corrected."Hopefully in 10 games time we will be (in the hunt for promotion) but obviously we are not at the moment."On goalscorer Barmby, he added: "He did ever so well. At the age of 36 he's an example to everyone."

Source: Team_Talk