Soccer--We were just not good enough, says Bruce as Hull go down

LONDON, May 24 (Reuters) - Hull City manager Steve Bruce said his side were "not good enough" to stay in the Premier League after their two-year spell in the top flight ended with relegation back to the Championship on Sunday. A year after facing Arsenal in the first FA Cup final in the club's history, Hull joined Burnley and Queens Park Rangers in returning to the second tier after they drew 0-0 with Manchester United in their final match while Newcastle United beat West Ham United 2-0. If Hull had won and Newcastle drawn or lost, they would have stayed up, but their final total of 35 points left them in the third relegation spot, three points adrift of safety. Bruce, who won three league titles during his nine year career as a player with Manchester United, joked last week that something needed to change as he had never beaten them in his 17 years as a manager. He could only watch on helplessly though as his side had two goals disallowed in the first half at the KC Stadium and was typically candid when he spoke to Sky Sports afterwards. "It is one of those awful, awful experiences," he said. "But if you are in football, it is full of highs and lows but this is a particularly low one at the moment. "Too many times I have come out afterwards and said 'we haven't done bad but we haven't scored'. "We had umpteen chances today but weren't able to take one and that's 17 times we haven't scored I think and if you cant score then you can't win a football match. "Maybe I have to take the brunt of it but we just haven't been good enough. I thought at the start of the season that we had enough to stay up but we haven't done enough. "You can look for all sorts of excuses: injuries, suspensions, but in the end we have not been good enough, and that goes for me too at the top." Hull were 15th and relatively safe at the beginning of last month, but although they beat Liverpool at the end of April, a poor run of form in the run-in saw them slide into the bottom three. Bruce said it was not up to him whether he could lead the club out of the Championship. "Everyone has been focused on this week, but I am sure there are a few conservations to be had in due course," he said. (Reporting by Mike Collett; editing by Toby Davis)