It was City’s first league draw this season and it took an 86 minute leveller from Stephen Ireland to rescue a point against the 10-men of Newcastle.
The Blues were given an early gift by referee Rob Styles who awarded a penalty on 12 minutes and sent off Habib Beye for pulling down Robinho in the box but two freakish goals gave Joe Kinnear’s men a welcome boost before Ireland’s late strike.
And afterwards Hughes told us: “We’re disappointed. We were in complete control early on and in a funny way the thing that went against us was the sending off. They’re fighting for their lives and they got a lucky break with both goals.
“The first one takes three ricochets and lads at Ameobi’s feet on the edge of the six-yard box. The second one is a complete freak goal that you won’t see again this season or for many seasons to come.
“So they got the rub of the green with that but in fairness we’ve got to do better than that. We didn’t do a great deal in that second half when we needed to press the opposition. They were running and chasing everything down but we should be better than that.
“We needed to show a little bit of craft and guile in the final third and we didn’t really move them around enough. Once they got two banks of four we found it difficult to break them down. In fairness we got a point out of a game that looked like it was going to go away from us, but it should have been an easy three points for us here.”
