City earned another hard fought point on the road at Wigan and go into late October with still only one questionable defeat shipped at the swamp. Here are the rival gaffer’s views…
Sparky Hughes
‘We’re a bit frustrated, I felt we were quite comfortable in the first half and then switched off at a hopeful long ball that got punted upfield. It was hard to take because I felt on the balance of play we had been much the better team. We came back out and got the response we needed, and at that point I expected us to go on and win the game.’
Roberto Martinez:
‘It was a very pleasing performance from start to finish. We knew the role we had today. We were playing against a very talented side I felt we stopped them playing overall. It was going down to 10-man probably that gave them a reason to get very solid behind the ball and I thought it was a real entertaining game, really open two teams that wanted to win and I felt that in every department we deserved to win.
Sparky Hughes
‘The sending-off stopped us in our tracks, we had to regroup and make sure that we were going to take something out of the game. I thought we showed some great qualities, we really did not want to get beaten today and we displayed a good mentality. That has come to the fore time and time again this season.’
On the Zabaleta sending off…
‘If you are on a yellow card, you have to be careful if you go to ground and don’t get the ball. In fairness, I think Pablo missed the player as well, but if you do go down and the guy hurdles your outstretched leg there is a danger you will get the yellow card. Unfortunately, that’s what happenened.’
On the Wright-Phillips penalty appeal…
‘The referee was in an excellent position, he kept up with play very well. From our point of view, he just made a wrong call on the decision, but his positioning was just right!’
Roberto Martinez:
Fulsome in his praise of both sides…
‘We will get better and we will learn from that. But obviously we are playing against a very special side and they are going to punish you if you make a simple mistake and probably that was the only time that we left our back four exposed in the whole game.’
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