Aside from a 3-0 victory at Sunderland, it’s been a veritable tale of woe for Manchester City on the road this season. Defeats at Wigan, Middlesbrough and Bolton have shown that the team are lacking a backbone, while 2-2 draws at Newcastle and Hull means that the jury is very much still out on Mark Hughes.
Nevertheless, The Times reports that the Welshman seems pleased with his team’s point at the KC Stadium, despite a fairly average performance once again. City seemed to be in the ascendancy towards the end of the first half, culminating in Stephen Ireland’s wonderful strike to put them in a 2-1 lead. However, it was the home side which finished more strongly, leading many to continue questioning Sparky’s future?
“We gifted them the opening goal and at that point you start to think, ‘Here we go again,’ ” Hughes said. “But overall we’re happy with our performance. The performances we’ve had away from home haven’t been anywhere near the level we need to get points in the Premier League, but that was much better. That should give us confidence for the games that we’ve got coming up.”
Hull certainly aren’t the worst team in the Premier League, although Manchester City have now kept only one clean sheet in their past eleven matches, something which goes a long way to explaining why they are continuing to struggle at the wrong end of the table. Surely the priority for Mark Hughes should be to try and shore things up at the back, especially with the sort of attacking weapons that can always conjure a goal out of nothing. Does the former Blackburn manager still have a future at Eastlands?
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