Hughes - No unrest at City

Hughes: No player unrest

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Mark Hughes has dismissed suggestions of a dressing room crisis at Manchester City following the FA Cup defeat by Nottingham Forest.

City have endured an indifferent season to date and are struggling to live up to the expectations created by the Abu Dhabi United Group's takeover.

Hughes' position as manager has been questioned with City just two points above the relegation zone in the Premier League, while a 3-0 home loss at the hands of Forest last weekend only served to fuel rumours of a crisis.

However, Hughes is unaware of any unrest in his squad and has assured his players that he is always willing to listen to any gripes.

"I have no idea about players complaining to the executive chairman Garry Cook about anything, but you are going to get these kind of stories when things are not going as well as we would like," Hughes told the Manchester Evening News.

"At the end of the day, all the players know that if they have any complaints they can knock on my door.

"When they do they can discuss any issues that they have and they are resolved very, very quickly. That is how it has always been."

Preparation

City travel to out-of-sorts Portsmouth this weekend and Hughes is confident his players will not be dwelling on the surprise defeat by Championship strugglers Forest.

He added: "I would have been disappointed if they had not been down when they came in, but you cannot dwell on what has gone you just have to make sure that it doesn't happen again and that preparation is right for the next game.

"You cannot allow defeats to have a negative impact; you just have to be better next time out and that is what we intend to achieve.

"Lifting the players is part of the job and when they came back to work on Monday morning what you try and do is take the emotion out of the result and look at the actual performance and the issues in the game."