Pablo Zabaleta was the player to see red for a second bookable offence, this coming after the Blues had hit back through Martin Petrov to cancel out Charles N’Zogbia’s first half stoppage time opener.
Reflecting in the day’s events, which means that City ended the weekend in fifth place, Hughes said:
“We’re a bit frustrated, I felt we were quite comfortable in the first half and then switched off at a hopeful long ball that got punted upfield.
It was hard to take because I felt on the balance of play we had been much the better team. We came back out and got the response we needed, and at that point I expected us to go on and win the game.
...Mark Hughes
“The sending-off stopped us in our tracks, we had to regroup and make sure that we were going to take something out of the game. I thought we showed some great qualities, we really did not want to get beaten today and we displayed a good mentality. That has come to the fore time and time again this season.”
City went a man down when Zabaleta’s challenge on Scotland saw referee Alan Wiley show the Argentinean the yellow card for the second time.
“I was a bit disappointed with his first booking,” commented Hughes. “As usual I am probably the only one who thinks that, but I thought it was just a clash of knees. I thought their guy made a little bit of a meal of it and stayed down.
“If you are on a yellow card, you have to be careful if you go to ground and don’t get the ball. In fairness, I think Pablo missed the player as well, but if you do go down and the guy hurdles your outstretched leg there is a danger you will get the yellow card. Unfortunately, that’s what happened.”
City’s claims for a penalty later on when Shaun Wright-Phillips was clipped by Maynor Figueroa were waved away by the referee, who Hughes thinks was in the right place to make the decision, which unfortunately for City was not the one they wanted.
“The referee was in an excellent position, he kept up with play very well. From our point of view, he just made a wrong call on the decision, but his positioning was just right!”
