Hughes refuses to blame Robinho alone

12 April 2012

Manchester City boss Mark Hughes insists record signing Robinho should not be singled out for his side's poor away performances.

The Brazilian playmaker was criticised for a lacklustre display in City's 1-0 defeat at Chelsea in the Barclays Premier League last weekend. City have won just once on the road all season in the league, but Hughes is keen to stress that Robinho is not the only player who should have fingers pointed at him.

Hughes said: "I think that applies to a number of players. Our performances away from home, certainly in the Premier League, haven't been as good as our home form."

He added: "But there is always an opportunity to put things right, to impress, in every game we play.

"That applies to every player in my team - it is not just Robinho that needs to have a positive performance. Every player in my team needs to have a positive performance."

City's away record, however, has held up well in Europe - and it will be put to the test when they face Aalborg in Denmark on Thursday.

City hold a 2-0 aggregate lead after goals from Felipe Caicedo and Shaun Wright-Phillips in the first leg of the last-16 tie last week.

Their advantage has seen them installed as favourites to win a competition which could yield their first major silverware since 1976.

Hughes said: "We think it is important for the standing of the team and profile of the club that we do well in Europe. "We have paid the competition great respect. Maybe other (English) teams didn't do that - and as a consequence, they haven't progressed as far as we have.

"We are pleased we are the sole representatives from England and we would love to progress to the latter stages. We have placed quite a lot of significance on it."

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in