Manchester City Football Club News

• Nickname:Sky Blues
• Founded:1887
• Manager:Roberto Mancini

• Ground:City of Manchester Stadium
• Capacity:48,000

Robinho snub played down

17 Dec 2009 - 08:45:02

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Manchester City boss Mark Hughes claims he has no problem with Robinho's reaction to being substituted during Wednesday's 3-0 defeat at Tottenham.

The Brazil star started the game at White Hart Lane in place of the suspended Craig Bellamy but lasted just 59 minutes before being replaced by Roque Santa Cruz.

The £32million club record signing walked straight down the tunnel after being substituted but, despite the apparent snub, Hughes claims there is no problem between the pair.

"He wasn't injured," he explained. "There is no hard-and-fast rule that he has to sit on the bench.

"He started reasonably well down the left-hand side. He was involved and linked with our front guys, but as the game wore on he found it more difficult to have a positive impact so we made a change."

City lost out to two goals from Niko Kranjcar and another from in-form England striker Jermain Defoe and afterwards Hughes admitted the performance was below-par.

"We didn't hit any kind of level. For the first 30 minutes we took the game to them, but in terms of producing a real threat we were not creating," he added.

"There are no excuses. We missed personnel and were lacking width because of that, but we had a team good enough to get a positive result."