John Massinio

Hull City maintained their bid for automatic promotion from the Championship, with a narrow victory at Portsmouth, who were left ruining their wastefulness in front of goal.

Pompey had by far the better of the first half, dominating possession and creating more chances, with the Tigers' only real opportunity coming when Olly McBurney's early effort was ruled out for offside.

The second half was more even until Adrian Segecic's short back pass put Nicolas Schmid under pressure, allowing Matt Crooks to slide in to score for the visitors.

Portsmouth remain in 19th, five points clear of the relegation zone, while the Tigers are now third.

Hull keeper Ivor Pandor was kept busy as Portsmouth had 15 attempts on goal in the first half.

Hull now face what could be a pivotal week as they play promotion rivals Ipswich Town and Millwall.

At Fratton Park the Tigers thought they had continued their momentum from Tuesday's win over Derby, as McBurnie put the ball in the net after Joe Gellhart's effort was saved, only to see the linesman's flag go up for offside.

The early let-off spurred Pompey into action, with Terry Devlin's long-range effort drawing an unconvincing save from Tigers' Ivor Pandor.

The goalkeeper put those nerves to rest soon after, producing a terrific stop from Regan Poole at close range, as the visitors were unable to clear a Pompey corner.

Segecik was next to try his luck for the home team, going it alone before firing a cross goal from a difficult angle.

After the break, the deadlock was eventually broken through a huge lapse in concentration.

Segecik had already been lucky to get away with one short pass before repeating the same error in his own penalty box.

Schmid was able to scramble the ball away from the diving McBurnie, but only as far as Crooks who connected perfectly to send the ball into an empty net.

Despite peppering the Hull goal in the closing stages, Pompey were unable to find a leveller, leaving the home fans and boss John Mazzino to reflect on yet another frustrating defeat.

John Mazzino told BBC Radio, I'm very disappointed with the result.

We controlled pretty much the entire game.

Ultimately we came away with 21 shots, Hull had two, we completely shot ourselves in the foot with the goal.

The manner of the goal was completely unacceptable.

I thought we didn't have quite so much control in the second half, it makes it more frustrating in a way.

Today was one where we really should have taken advantage.