Hughes hails professional City

Hughes: Plenty to smile about

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Mark Hughes was full of praise for his Manchester City side following their 3-1 victory over West Ham.

The Blues gave an impressive display of attacking intent at Eastlands as they eased to a fifth win in six Premier League outings.

Carlos Tevez stole the show against his former club as he bagged a brace, while Martin Petrov proved how devastating he can be when on top form as he made one and scored another.

Craig Bellamy also proved to be a menace throughout for City, who should have won by more, and Hughes is delighted to see his new-look side gelling together so early in the season.

"I thought some of our play was excellent tonight," said the Welshman.

"It was about getting the job done. We have seen the results over the weekend and we knew we were in for a challenge this evening. West Ham are a good team, they try and play the game the right way, and we had to make sure they didn't have a positive impact on the game in terms of creating chances and putting us under pressure.

"But I thought we were excellent from start to finish. We showed real purpose and a real determination to get the job done and won the game quite comfortably."

Good shape

Hughes admitted that City suffered something of a derby hangover in their Carling Cup date with Fulham last week, but is adamant that his players have left the 4-3 defeat to Manchester United firmly in the past.

"We move on," he said defiantly.

"It was a big game, the derby, as everybody understands and we had a little bit of a reaction on Wednesday in terms of emotion and physicality of the game. We won the game on the Wednesday, though, and we won again this evening so we are in good shape.

"We are enjoying our football and we are playing well at the moment. We have got big performances from big players in the team and that is what we need."