Hughes joy at City start

City cruise towards Uefa Cup progress

By Pete Oliver   Last updated: 17th July 2008

Mark Hughes happy Uefa

Hughes: Perfect start

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Mark Hughes praised the performances of new signing Jo and goalscorer Martin Petrov as he got his Manchester City reign off to a winning start in Faroe Islands.

Petrov and Dietmar Hamann were on target as City recorded a comfortable 2-0 victory over EB/Streymur to make the second leg of their Uefa Cup qualifying tie on July 31 an apparent formality.

"We created good chances and I was pleased with Jo's performance," said Hughes of his £19million striker.

"He showed great awareness of players around him, and once he gets to know the players and the way we want to play he will be a big asset to us."

Hughes added: "Petrov was excellent, certainly in the first half. The opposition found it difficult to cope with the quality he has. He got us off on the right foot with that opening goal and pushed us towards a good performance all round.

"We hope he will be providing a lot of goals this season. He has the ability to go past people, and break through the lines.

"When you have someone like that with the technical ability to affect the game positively like that, it gives you a lot more options."

Hughes took the opportunity to bring on promising young striker Ched Evans in the second half and insisted afterwards that the Wales international, who has just signed a new three-year deal at Eastlands, will continue his development with City.

"Ched has been excellent in pre-season and I am glad we have secured him on a long-term contract now," Hughes added.

"He has a big future and that has been demonstrated by the amount of phone calls I have had from Championship managers wanting to get him out on loan.

"But I think I am going to frustrate a lot of teams at that level because he will not be going anywhere in this transfer window."