Swansea City 0-2 Hull City

Abel Hernandez scored his first goal of the season for Hull

Hull secured victory late on at Swansea City to maintain their unlikely winning start to the Premier League season.

Gylfi Sigurdsson hit the bar as the Swans shaded a first half in which the visitors were denied a penalty for an apparent foul on Robert Snodgrass.

The hosts dominated possession after the break but Hull substitute Shaun Maloney struck from close range.

Abel Hernandez added a second in injury time to take the Tigers, still without a permanent manager, up to third.

Relive the match from the Liberty Stadium

Both teams were aiming for a second win from their first two league games - unexpectedly so in the case of Hull, whose opening victory over Leicester was the first time the reigning English champions had begun a title defence with defeat since 1989.

The feat was even more impressive as Hull achieved that with just 13 senior players at their disposal, as was the case at the Liberty Stadium.

Depleted Hull defy the odds

His squad still ravaged by injury, caretaker manager Mike Phelan unsurprisingly stuck with the same team which beat Leicester.

And although Hull had to endure long spells of Swansea possession, they were dangerous on the counter-attack - thanks largely to the creativity of Snodgrass.

His neat through ball gave Adama Diomande a glorious chance to open the scoring - which he sliced wide - and the Scotland midfielder should have been awarded a penalty when he was brought down by Jordi Amat's rash sliding tackle shortly before half-time.

Snodgrass also played an important role in the first goal, as it was his corner which was turned in by the unmarked Maloney.

Swansea fail to impress new owners

This was an underwhelming start to a new era for Swansea, with American owners Jason Levien and Steve Kaplan in attendance for the first time since completing their takeover in July.

Their vision for the club is built on sustainability and prudence, though their one substantial outlay so far - the £15m club-record signing Borja Baston - was missing through injury.

Despite monopolising possession and spending much time in Hull's half, Swansea lacked invention and purpose in attack.

One positive was the return of Sigurdsson, making his first start of the season having been given an extended rest following his impressive Euro 2016 campaign with Iceland.

Not even his creative nous could lift the Swans, however, as Francesco Guidolin's side limped to a first home defeat since February.

Man of the match - Robert Snodgrass (Hull)

The creative hub of the Hull team, making smart use of what precious possession the visitors had to carve open Swansea’s defence on a couple of occasions.

What they said:

Hull caretaker manager Mike Phelan: "We still are short on numbers and have to be realistic. It was a tremendous performance and the character of the group has been brilliant from day one.

"The difficulty to come here was to see if we could go after them or contain them. The players stuck to their task and we created more chances than them."

Swansea boss Francesco Guidolin: "I am disappointed. We did not deserve to lose today. We attacked for 90 minutes but not brilliantly. We have to play quicker but that is not easy against a compact team. It was a difficult game for us."

What's next?

Swansea come up against Peterborough in the EFL Cup on Tuesday (kick-off 19:45 BST), while Hull travel to Exeter in the same competition.

The stats you need to know:

• Hull are only the second promoted side in Premier League history to win their opening two matches of a season (Bolton in 2001-02 the other)

• The Tigers won their first two games of a Premier League season for the very first time. The last time they won their opening two games of any season was in 2004-05 in the third tier

• Shaun Maloney is the first Hull player in their Premier League history to score and assist in a game as a substitute

• Swansea lost a Premier League game in the month of August for the first time since 2013 (1-0 against Tottenham)

• Abel Hernandez has scored five goals in his last seven league games for Hull, excluding play-off matches