Hull boss Grant McCann reiterated his opinion that Jarrod Bowen is the best forward in the Championship after he starred in the 4-0 win over Preston.
The 22-year-old broke the deadlock in the first half, taking his tally for the club to 50, and rounded off the scoring with his 14th of the season.
After Josh Magennis’ penalty had doubled City’s advantage at the start of the second half, Bowen also laid on a sublime third for the equally-impressive Kamil Grosicki.
Bowen has now scored more Championship goals than any other player since August 2018, with 35, leading to speculation that a move to the Premier League could be on the cards in January.
Asked if he wanted Bowen to stop making the headlines ahead of the re-opening of the transfer window, McCann said: “No, I want him to keep scoring. He deserves it.
“That is the biggest thing that he has, his mentality is unbelievable. People do not see that. How high he is every day on the training pitch, the best trainer.
“In the 85th minute when he lost the ball, he sprinted back to get it. He gets the rewards, with all the goals and assists, because of his work-rate.
“The question, if you ask me if we are going to sell in January, is not for me really. The way he is playing at the minute, we are over the moon.
“I have said it before and I will say it again, he is the best at what he does in this league, in that position. And we are delighted to have him.”
McCann believes the foundations of Tuesday night’s win were set during their second-half fightback at Middlesbrough on Sunday.
“Probably our most complete performance of the season,” he said.
“We have had games with seven or eight performing, but tonight we had one to 11 from the start.
“And that probably came off the back of the second half at Middlesbrough. We have worked on trying to get better all the time.”
Preston boss Alex Neil felt injuries to his defence played into Hull’s hands with Bowen and Grosicki running riot.
“To start with, we had players playing out of position,” he said.
“We have got one fit full-back at the club. We are missing a left-sided centre-back and, naturally, the defence is weakened because of that.
“It was one of them ones where we came up against a team where their best players are their wide players and all my full-backs are missing, so I knew it was going to be difficult.
“Their forward players we struggled to deal with and I thought they were ruthless when they got into good positions.”
