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MARK HUGHES left the Etihad Stadium a relieved man – with Stoke not having to face Manchester City again until March.
That was the only crumb of comfort for Hughes and his beleaguered players after their chastening defeat at the hands of his former club.
Hughes, in charge of City from 2008 to 2009, said his old club are the team to beat this season and is just thankful he does not have to play them again until the spring at the bet365 Stadium.
“The good news is that we don’t have to play City for a while,” said Hughes. “That’s always good news.
“We’ve had a tough run of fixtures. We’ve played all the top sides now apart from Tottenham and we’ve got a decent points return at this stage.
“It might not look like that but, given who we’ve played, I think it’s decent – we’re happy enough with that.
“We’ve got games coming up now that we’ll have to be stronger in than we showed here.
“But you have to factor in the quality of the opposition you face, and we won’t face opposition like that on too many occasions this year.
“We didn’t acquit ourselves as well as we know we’re capable of doing.
“We did the fundamentals poorly, and when you do that against top-class opposition, you run the risk of getting turned over like we were.
“City do look significantly better than anybody else in the league in terms of our experience.
“We’ve faced Arsenal, Chelsea and Manchester United, and we’ve acquitted ourselves fine.
“But on this occasion City were just very clinical.”