English Premier League: Mark Hughes toughened up by his experience at Manchester City
Mark Hughes has come out and stated that he has become a better manager and learnt a lot after he was dismissed from his post as Manchester City’s manager during the 2009-2010 season. Hughes was replaced by Roberto Mancini who then guided
City to a 5th place finish in the English Premier League. Hughes and Mancini clash on Sunday as Fulham take on Manchester City. Mark Hughes, the Fulham manager right now will be looking to send out a message to his ex-employers by gaining
all three points against City.
Manchester City, themselves have been on a bad run of form as they have not won either of their last two league matches. City drew their last league encounter against Birmingham City and before that they drew against Manchester United,
both the matches ended with the score line at nil all.
Speaking on his dismissal from Manchester City last season, Hughes stated, "It was the first time I had been out of work ever, so it was difficult to take. Initially there was a sense of relief that I was out of the madness for a little
while, then you close the door on it and move on. You review your performance and say 'Could you have done any better?' and under the circumstances I don't think I could have done. The overriding feeling was disappointment."
He went onto say, "It's the old adage, you're not a proper manager until you get sacked." Manchester City are currently 4th in the English Premier League table but a defeat to Fulham will be a huge dent to their
chances of finishing in the top four teams of the English league in the 2010-2011 season.
Since his departure from Eastlands Hughes has not refrained about speaking or criticizing his former club, he has even criticize the Italian manager Mancini quite openly. Similarly on City as he stated, "I felt the targets were attainable
that year. Expectations around Manchester City at the moment are off the scale. I understood that. Every day they were edging up the scale and you had to go with it and deal with it. In many ways Fulham is in a far better position than Manchester City was
when I walked through the door. That's credit to what has been in place here. I got bogged down (at City) trying to address areas of the footballing operation which weren't up to standard.”
Mark went onto explain how things are different at Fulham, he said, "There's a different feeling here. They (the Fulham board) understand what it takes to be successful in the Premier League and everybody's pushing in the right direction."
Roberto Mancini, Mark Hughes’s counterpart at Manchester City has come under pressure recently due to his team’s lack of results. Hughes admitted that he had no sympathy with the man who replaced him.
The ex-Manchester United striker said, "Sympathy? No, we all know what the job entails. I went to City because I wanted to test myself on a bigger stage. In the end it became difficult for me to progress but it was a good experience. There
are good people there."
Hughes explained that he wanted to change a lot of things at the club, something that wasn’t taken to well at the Eastlands."I went in (to City) and thought there were a lot of things wrong. I thought by changing them quickly people would
understand what I was doing but a lot of them resented it. You have to engage people first before you can take them forward” said the ex-City manager.
Mark Hughes also expressed Fulham’s ambitions in the future as a football club, he said, "We want to be an established top 10 Premier League club and that would be some achievement for Fulham. We've got a business model that is sustainable
for Fulham. Is Manchester City's sustainable? I'm not so sure that it is. But football changes on a daily, hourly basis. Things can change very quickly, as I found when I went there."
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