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• Hull ease to 3-1 win at Stoke to climb into Championship play-off places

  Hull extended their unbeaten run to seven league games with a comfortable 3-1 victory at Stoke.

  The Tigers leapt back into the play-off places thanks mainly to a quickfire double after the half-hour mark.

  Aaron Connolly opened the scoring with his fifth goal of the season after good work from former Potters loanee Jaden Philogene.

  And the shell-shocked hosts fell further behind a matter of seconds after the restart when Adama Traore notched his first goal since April.

  Regan Slater’s shot led to a Lynden Gooch own goal in the second half as Hull coasted towards a third successive Championship away victory for the first time since April 2013.

  Stoke notched a late consolation through the returning Andre Vidigal, but he could not prevent their winless run stretching to five league games.

  The tone for the home side was set inside 13 minutes as Tyrese Campbell limped off to add to the Potters’ injury woes.

  Despite their early setback, the first clear chance fell to Stoke but Daniel Johnson dragged his effort wide in what would prove to be a costly miss.

  At the opposite end, Philogene – who spent six months in the Potteries in 2022 – overpowered Ben Wilmot to tee up Connolly for a simple finish as Hull took the lead.

  And the bright Connolly was instrumental as the Tigers raced to double their advantage almost immediately after the restart.

  The Republic of Ireland forward advanced dangerously from goalkeeper Ryan Allsop’s long pass and his blocked strike popped up invitingly for Traore, who drilled a first-time effort on the swivel into the corner.

  Vidigal, who had missed a month through injury, tried to rouse a comeback with his free-kick forcing a stop from Allsop.

  Yet Stoke nearly fell further behind in a calamitous first half when a downward Connolly header was cleared off the line by an alert Johnson.

  Sead Haksabanovic, like Vidigal minutes earlier, came close to halving the hosts’ arrears from a free-kick but again Allsop was on hand to save.

  And it was a similar story after the interval with the Hull stopper twice thwarting Wesley, with the second a miraculous instinct save from point-blank range.

  The visitors took advantage and soon added a third with a long-range Slater strike deflecting off Gooch and looping over a helpless Mark Travers.

  The Potters’ shining light Vidigal then offered his side a lifeline as he marked his return with a fifth goal of the season.

  After skipping beyond the challenge of Jacob Greaves, the Portuguese forward finished accurately low into Allsop’s far corner, but it was too little, too late.

  Stoke searched desperately for a late reprieve, but Hull held on for a first league victory in the Potteries since January 2006.

• Federico Dimarco’s stunner earns Inter Milan a fifth straight Serie A victory

  Inter Milan made it five wins from their opening five Serie A games with a 1-0 win at Empoli.

  Federico Dimarco’s superb strike just after half-time was enough for Simone Inzaghi’s side and while Empoli had chances to equalise, Inter held on to take the points.

  The leaders enjoyed the lion’s share of possession in the opening stages and had a couple of half-chances through Matteo Darmian and Davide Frattesi, but Empoli goalkeeper Etrit Berisha dealt with both.

  The visitors thought they had opened the scoring when Hakan Çalhanoglu’s short corner was whipped in to Marcus Thuram and he nudged the ball home from close range, only for the linesman to rule it out for offside.

  Inter upped the tempo in search of an opener after the break and the first chance fell the way of Dimarco, whose powerful drive was smartly saved by Berisha.

  The visitors broke the deadlock in sensational style shortly afterwards. A corner was headed out to Dimarco and his first-time effort from 20 yards flew into the top corner.

  Inzaghi’s side went in search of a second to kill the game and almost got one when Thuram found himself with space inside the area but his effort curled marginally wide of the target.

  Empoli were looking to avoid a fifth straight loss and an opportunity presented itself from a free-kick just outside the area.

  Filippo Ranocchia’s curling effort was on target but goalkeeper Yann Sommer was alert to pull off a superb save having not had much to do previously.

  The hosts started to cause last year’s Champions League finalists some issues and almost levelled a couple of minutes later. Stiven Shpendi set up Tommaso Baldanzi but his low drilled strike was blocked well by the Inter defence.

  Chances started to fall the way of both sides and Thuram was close to making it two but his curling strike went wide.

  Baldanzi was Empoli’s biggest threat and made a darting run off the ball to accomodate Jacopo Fazzini’s pass, but once again the danger was snuffed out by the Inter defence.

  Defeat means Empoli became the first team in Serie A history to lose five consecutive games without scoring a goal.

• Grant McCann believes Doncaster are heading in right direction after Gills scalp

  Doncaster boss Grant McCann believes his side are only getting better after making it back-to-back wins with the 2-1 triumph over high-flying Gillingham.

  Two excellent strikes from Ben Close, including an 87th-minute winner, saw Rovers collect their first home league triumph of the campaign, a week on from finally picking up a maiden victory at Forest Green.

  And McCann feels his side are firmly heading in the right direction as they seek to make up ground on the promotion-chasing pack in the division.

  “We had to be very good to win and I felt in the second half we were as good as we have been this season,” he said. “I thought we were really in control.

  “We’re yet to have that full 90-minute performance. We’re still searching and that takes some doing, every manager will tell you that. Teams will always have a spell against you.

  “I felt that Gillingham didn’t really have much of a spell against us and on a whole, I felt the second half was a real performance from us.

  “I could feel the team taking on board the information we had given them, particularly in taking up the pockets of space to have that control of the game against a top, top team.”

  Gillingham manager Neil Harris is still looking for his team to find the balance between defensive solidity and creativity after dropping points in South Yorkshire.

  The Gills set the early pace in League Two with five 1-0 wins from their opening eight matches. But with Harris encouraging them to deliver more decisive scorelines, they have shown vulnerability in defence, which he is keen to see quickly banished.

  “In the last couple of weeks we’ve been a lot more creative, we’ve had sparks, we’ve shown class and we want to continue that because if we do, we will wins games of football comfortably,” Harris said.

  “We’ve won a lot of games so far 1-0 by being resilient. In the last couple we’ve not been as resilient as I would have liked but we’ve been really good with the ball. We’ve just got to find that balance between the two.

  “The winning goal for Doncaster – he stuck it in the top corner but it’s poor from the restart, and it was from the first. To be a top team in League Two, we’ve got to be better than that from restarts.”

  Despite his frustrations, Harris felt Gillingham should have won the game comfortably.

  He said: “I’m baffled how we’ve not won the game. We’ve not won the game because we weren’t clinical enough. We should have been coming off (with) four or five goals but if you don’t take your chances, you don’t win games.”