McClaren hails Robinho 'magic'

12 April 2012

Former England manager Steve McClaren took time out after seeing his FC Twente side beaten by Manchester City 3-2 in the UEFA Cup to praise the quality of Robinho.

The former Real Madrid striker curled his effort over goalkeeper Sander Boschker in the 56th minute after being released by Stephen Ireland. It was Robinho's seventh goal of the season and City went on to record a nail-biting 3-2 victory in their Group A encounter at Eastlands.

The Brazilian also hit the post twice and McClaren said: "When you can call on players like Robinho and Jo, you are always going to get some magic."

He added: "It is difficult to defend for 90 minutes without giving them opportunities. There was some great finishing."

Manager Mark Hughes was pleased to have got off to winning start.

He said: "We had some great opportunities and Robinho could have had a hat-trick.

"We were quite comfortable at 3-1 up but we just switched off on a set play and gave them a lifeline.

"But we have got a positive result and that is what we need to achieve in home games.

"We were better in the second half and raised the tempo. We were more on the front foot and showed the right attitude."

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