Long-term talks on ice for Dowie

The former Crystal Palace and Coventry boss was brought in for the final nine games following the sacking of Phil Brown two weeks ago. Dowie has made a decent start to life at the helm, with a last-gasp defeat at Portsmouth followed by an impressive 2-0 victory over Fulham last weekend. That lifted the Tigers level on points with 17th-placed West Ham having played a game fewer and Pearson this week hailed the transformation under Dowie. But the manager is keeping his focus on the pitch, saying: "I don't think we'd do that (discuss the future) yet. "When we came here, I knew exactly what the remit was. I've got seven games to go. Come the weekend after the season finishes, then we'll get to it. "All that matters is that Hull are somehow in the Premier League, and that's the focus." It is Hull's away form that has kept them in the bottom three and they travel to Stoke on Saturday still looking for a first win on the road this term. The Potters came up with Hull the season before last but have avoided the struggles their rivals have endured and currently sit 11th in the table - 12 points clear of the bottom three. Tony Pulis' side have become renowned for their physical approach and prowess from set-pieces but Dowie believes their footballing credentials get overlooked. He continued: "Tony's got some power and pace and no lack of quality. Sometimes it's disrespectful for people to talk about the job Tony's done because it's always linked to the way he makes them play. "He's got (Matthew) Etherington, he's got (Ricardo) Fuller - whose goal (against West Ham) was sublime last week - (Glenn) Whelan's a good footballer. "They score goals at set-pieces but that's testimony to the way he (Pulis) drills them. They're organised, they know where the delivery is and they punch their weight. "You have to cope with it but they can play as well, there's no question about that, and the fact they're mid-table is all that needs to be said about Tony. We've got a strategy and hopefully it'll work well on Saturday." Dowie also insisted he is not focusing too much on Rory Delap's famous long throws. He added: "It's a fantastic weapon and wouldn't everyone use it if they could? But they've scored more from corners than they have throw-ins." Although Hull have picked up only four points away from home this term they can take heart from previous trips to the Britannia Stadium, where they are unbeaten in three visits. Dowie has been encouraged by the spirit in the camp this week but he is fully expecting the survival battle to go down to the wire. He said: "Of course we'd like to be out of it in three weeks' time but that's unlikely to happen given the nature of the season. So we've just got to make sure we look after our business. "Somehow we have to hang onto a rung and pull ourselves up rung by rung until we get ourselves out of it. It's going to be nervy, it's going to be edgy - we'd love to be able to go and win 3-0 and 4-0 but it's not going to happen. "We've got to have belief and we've got to have resolve and this group of players have shown good resolve, especially last weekend." A better result for Hull than West Ham would see the Tigers climb out of the bottom three, and Dowie added: "We've got to concentrate on the result first and, if the consequence is we get out, then so be it."