Eldin’s save is priceless

ELDIN JAKUPOVIC admits he threw his pre-match homework out of the window to become Hull’s last-gasp penalty hero.

The Hull goalkeeper saved Dusan Tadic’s last-minute spot-kick to earn the relegation-battling Tigers what could prove to be a precious point.

The Swiss international said: “For the penalty I did my homework with my goalkeeper coach. We watched DVDs before the game.

“To be fair, I saw his last four or five penalties and he never finished like that. It’s always higher and more in the middle.

“Finally I had to make the decision. The decision was perfect, my feeling, my stomach told me to go this side.

“My feelings told me to go this side and I went. You have to be lucky as well, because it was a very good penalty. It was a mix of luck with feelings and finally we took the point.

“When the referee gave the penalty I said, ‘Come on now I have to help the team again, try to save the penalty’. I spoke with myself and finally I did it.

“I’ve saved a lot of penalties in my career but this is one of the main penalties. It was last-minute. We need every single point.

“If we’re going to take points we’re going to stay in the league. We cannot now hope that another team is going to help us.”

Man-of-the-match Jakupovic made another crucial save to keep out Tadic’s power-packed volley – justifying boss Marco Silva’s call to pick him ahead of David Marshall when he first took charge.

Silva said: “My first game was a cup game and we changed the keeper, played Eldin. He had a good performance and we decided to keep the same goalkeeper.

“David is a fantastic professional, a very good goalkeeper, works very hard and helps all the boys a lot and Eldin as well. He has kept the focus in his work. Obviously I am happy with the performance of Eldin.”

Hull have still not won away since August after Oumar Niasse saw his stoppage-time effort cleared off the line by Cedric Soares.

Only relegated Sunderland and fellow strugglers Middlesbrough have scored fewer home goals than the shot-shy Saints.

Saints fans booed their team off at full-time and many are calling for manager Claude Puel to be sacked despite steering the club to the final of the EFL Cup this season.

It was not the way defender Maya Yoshida dreamt of marking his 100th Premier League appearance.

Yoshida said: “I can imagine how the supporters feel because we are very frustrated. It’s difficult to talk about scoring because I am a defender but we shouldn’t play like we did.

“We need to play much better because there are some difficult games coming, especially the last two weeks when we have to play four games.”