Hughes - We were second best

01 November 2009 19:04
// A bit of a hack but it works// The article snippet is wrapped onto a second line, even when #article-sub is emptyif( $("div#article-sub").children().length == 0 ) {$("div#article-sub").remove();} Manchester City boss Mark Hughes admitted his side played poorly at Birmingham.[LNB] City moved into fourth after a goalless draw at St Andrews, but Hughes was not happy.[LNB]Indeed things could have been much worse for City had Shay Given not saved a second-half penalty from James McFadden.[LNB]"In terms of performance level, that is the poorest we have played in sometime," Hughes told Sky Sports.[LNB]"But credit to Birmingham because in fairness they made it really difficult and worked extremely hard but I was expecting us to show more quality.[LNB]Improving"We never really had long periods where we dictated to the opposition, and we are better than that - but in fairness we picked up another point on our travels and we are improving in that respect but I just feel we can play better.[LNB]"We got in good positions where we did create, but we didn't have the quality in the final third to pick the lock.[LNB]"We will take it as a positive, teams are taking points of each other - we will be there in the mix but it is not going to be steady progress, some days we will have days where we will disappoint."[LNB]Hughes was also full of praise for Man of the Match Shay Given, adding: "Shay was outstanding and needed to be at times, everyone can see the qualities he has."[LNB]

Source: SKY_Sports