Hull City buoyed by win over Swansea

LONDON: Hull City gave its Premier League survival chances a massive boost when it beat Swansea 21 yesterday.

Oumar Niasse scored both goals and although Alfie Mawson pulled one back late on, Hull held on to move to thirdbottom, one point from safety.

‘‘We got three important points — of course I am happy,’’ Hull manager Marco Silva said.

‘‘It was a tough, tough game. We improved in the second half and after that we controlled the game.

‘‘In the first half we had chances, and in the second half we improved our attitude and scored two goals. It is a fair result for us.’’

Silva said Hull now had to translate that kind of performance to its travels.

‘‘We need to take points away from home as well; it is difficult,’’ he said.

Swansea is now just three points ahead of Hull in 16th place and manager Paul Clement admitted there was plenty of hard work to be done.

Bournemouth also moved away from trouble thanks to a 32 win over West Ham. Josh King was the hero with a hattrick, the winner coming in the 90th minute and lifting Eddie Howe’s side to 14th.

King missed a penalty before West Ham took the lead through Michail Antonio and Benik Afobe missed again from the spot for Bournemouth before King scored twice to give Bournemouth the lead early in the second half.

Andre Ayew must have thought he had grabbed an equaliser seven minutes from time but King smashed the ball home from close range in time added on.

‘‘Relief is the overwhelming feeling,’’ Bournemouth manager Eddie Howe said.

‘‘It always is in those circumstances — a mixture of emotions but the main one is relief.

‘‘It sums up the Premier League really — the ups and downs are extreme but I think we played well.

Everton beat West Brom 30 in the day’s other game, goals from Kevin Mirallas, Morgan Schneiderlin and Romelu Lukaku — with his 19th league goal of the season — lifting the team to within two points of sixthplaced Manchester United.