Hughes eyes Euro progress
02 Jul 2008 - 07:47:49
Manager Mark Hughes is confident Manchester City can overcome EB/Streymur in the UEFA Cup, but is taking nothing for granted ahead of their first qualifying round clash.
The Citizens were handed a meeting with the little-known Faroe Islands side at Tuesday's draw and Hughes has backed his team to progress in the competition.
However, the new City boss has warned his players not to under-estimate the threat posed by the minnows as they will be midway through their own domestic campaign when the sides meet.
Hughes has experience of UEFA Cup shocks after seeing former club Blackburn Rovers lose in last season's first round to Greek side Larissa.
"We've got a little bit of information on them already and the one thing that is a worry obviously is the levels of fitness," he told the club's official website.
"At Blackburn, we had experience of the UEFA Cup at this stage of the season and it can be difficult.
"The fitness factor does come into play just because the teams you face at this stage invariably are in the middle of their season. I think the team we're going to face from the Faroes will have played 13 games when we meet them.
"So they're ahead of us in fitness terms, but we'd like to think with the base fitness that professional footballers have at Premier League level and technically we will be far and away the better side. You would expect that to be enough.
"Obviously the strength of their league is nowhere near the Premier League, so you'd like to think really that we'd progress."