Hull City manager Steve Bruce has expressed his belief that Sunday's match against Leicester City is a bigger game than last season's FA Cup final against Arsenal.
The Tigers ended a 10-match winless streak to climb out of the relegation zone on Boxing Day, and will extend their lead over bottom-placed Leicester to nine points if they can make it back-to-back victories this weekend.
Bruce acknowledged that his side were always likely to be embroiled in a relegation scrap this season, but believes that they could be almost out of reach of the Foxes should they pick up all three points at the KC Stadium.
"That's what it means to me. Nigel [Pearson] will want to turn us over. It's a bigger game for me than the cup final because if we turn them over to go nine points clear of them at the halfway stage, it's a big turnaround to be caught, huge," Bruce told reporters.
"As we've seen, it's been difficult enough to win one or two games, let alone turn around a three-game swing. We are there [at the bottom end of the table] ourselves. We have only been four years in our history in the division, so we are going to be in and around it, but we always expected to be.
"The league is starting to take shape. Halfway going into January, the teams you would think were going to be at the top are there - there are one or two surprises like there always is. The teams at the bottom, I could have told you the bottom eight going into January - I might not have got it the right way around, but we have to accept that we are going to be one of them."
Leicester are in poor form themselves going into the match, having lost their last six matches and picked up just two points from the last 39 available.
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