Man Utd 'Targeted' Wright-Phillips Claims Hughes

Manchester United received six yellow cards during the Manchester derby against City today, and will receive a fine from the English FA. The bulk of those cards seemed to be handed to players who'd been briefed to target City's Shaun Wright-Phillips for some rough treatment, according to the Blues' manager Mark Hughes.

"If I can be diplomatic and say United have great experience of being able to control the game and dictate the momentum of the play," said the Welshman this afternoon.

"Sometimes they do that by stopping people in their tracks and Shaun was stopped on numerous occasions."

As for the second yellow card shown to Ronaldo for deliberate handball, Hughes had no sympathy for the United player and felt the referee made the right decision.

"I don't think the referee had any choice," said Hughes. "I don't know what reason he will give for doing it but if he says the ball was going to hit him in the face why didn't he head it?

"It is a soft sending-off but it was a second bookable offense and he had to go."

Hughes was more conciliatory about his old club when it came to the quality of football that they played though.

"We showed them too much respect in the first half," he added. "This is not going to happen overnight for us.

"We are going in the right direction but it takes time. We have to compete against that and in the near future we will.

"But at the moment they are a better team than us."

Hughes will now have to lift his players ahead of Wednesday's UEFA Cup tie with Paris St-Germain, but received some more bad news ahead of that fixture.

City's powerful England center-back Micah Richards will be missing from the game against the French team after he limped out of today's game during the second-half.

--Zack Wilson, Goal.com