Steve Bruce hailed a "remarkable achievement" as Hull City produced a stirring late comeback to secure a point at Fulham that all but guarantees Premier League survival.
The Tigers trailed 2-0 with 15 minutes left at Craven Cottage and looked about to be dragged into a relegation battle. But goals from Nikica Jelavic and Shane Long stunned the Fulham faithful and kept City six points clear of the bottom three and on the brink of safety.
With Norwich losing to Manchester United this evening, and bottom club Sunderland hosting relegation rivals Cardiff on Sunday, it would now take an exceptional turnaround to deny Bruce's team a second season in the top flight.
The City manager stopped short of saying his side were safe from relegation this evening, but admitted 37 points would probably be enough.
"We might be safe tomorrow when we look at those games," he said. "If we hadn't have got the point today we might have still been in it - 37 points might be enough but we've got three games to go and to get ourselves into this position is all credit to the players.
"We've been in and around mid-table since last September and to get to a cup final and to be hopefully safe with three games to go is a remarkable achievement by the players."
After City frustrated Fulham in the first 45, Cottagers boss Felix Magath responded at half-time by bolstering his attack with Kieran Richardon and Ashkan Dejageh, before sending on Darren Bent soon after, and he was quickly rewarded with two goals in three minutes from Dejageh and Fernando Amorebieta. "They've gone for it with four up top and all of a sudden we're 2-0 down," said Bruce. "But as usual we responded in the right way. It's not often you come back from 2-0 down but if any team's going to do it, these have got a chance to do it. "We've hit the bar and Elmohamady's hit the post and you're thinking it isn't your day, but we stuck at it and produced a bit of quality towards the end.WOW! Another day of making it hard for ourselves. Great character to get the point in the end. Fulham can't catch us, now we wait.... #HCAFC
— Curtis Davies #6 (@TheCurtisDavies) April 26, 2014
"The reason we're 13th and in the FA Cup final is we don't give up, we have a crack at it and we keep on going and we rightly got the rewards today."• Arsenal are a point clear of Everton and have a game in hand in the race for fourth place this evening, after Roberto Martínez's side slumped to a 2-0 defeat at Southampton. The Gunners host Newcastle on Monday. Hull City will qualify for the Europa League whatever the result of the FA Cup final, if Arsenal finish fourth and qualify for the Champions League.Good point!! Took us 45 mins and 2-0 down before we got started. But any point in this league away from home is a positive
— Tom Huddlestone (@Huddz8) April 26, 2014
Boom! Get in... Big result for us today! Quality from the lads to come back from 2-0 down. Always nice to get a goal aswell! #UTT
— shane long (@Shanelong009) April 26, 2014
