Bristol City head coach Liam Manning reflected on winning a Christmas cracker against Hull and admitted: “We like to do things the hard way.”

His side led through Tommy Conway’s 24th-minute penalty, awarded for handball against Jacob Greaves, only to fall behind by half-time to Aaron Connolly’s solo strike and an Ozan Tufan spot-kick after referee Ben Toner spotted a dubious foul on Greaves in a crowded box.

Anis Mehmeti matched the brilliance of Connolly’s goal with a similar effort to equalise on 77 minutes and after Hull lost goalkeeper Ryan Allsop to an injury sustained trying to prevent that goal, Knight beat his replacement Matt Ingram with a deflected effort to settle the outcome.

Manning joked that he had aged 10 years during the previous home win over Sunderland and again had his emotions put through the wringer.

He said: “Up to our goal, we were excellent and caused them real problems. Then we got a bit emotional and they took advantage as a very good side who are well coached and on a good run of form.

“The less said about Hull’s penalty the better. There was so little contact on their player and I’m just glad the result wasn’t influenced by a poor refereeing decision.

“But we responded to the setback well, even in the final minutes of the first half, and the second-half performance was excellent.

“We got on the front foot and showed some moments of real quality. We spoke at half-time and there was so much good in the first half that I didn’t want to derail it.

“The message to the players was that we faced a terrific challenge and could either step up and build on our good first-half play or let the penalty decision have an adverse effect.”

Hull head coach Liam Rosenior, a former player for both clubs, was serving a one-match touchline ban and admitted: “Watching from the stand was horrendous. I have learned my lesson and never want to let it happen again.

“Credit to Bristol for playing well, but for us it was three points dropped. I sound like a broken record when I say that we didn’t get the result we deserved.

“Our level of performance was again good, but we have to manage games better because the end product is all-important. It’s so frustrating because we should have more points on the board than we have.

“The defeat was self-inflicted. There was so much good in the way we played.

“Ryan Allsop hurt his back diving for their second goal and that is just bad luck.

“I believe that if you perform consistently over the course of a season you will end up where you deserve to be. We were by far the better team, but key moments in the game have cost us.”