“We had opportunities but we needed to assert ourselves in the first half and we weren’t able to do that,” he said.
“United were a bit sharper to the ball and we couldn’t get a foothold. I thought we were a lot better in the second half, we forced the game.
“On occasions we broke well but on occasions we were knocked over. Overall, we are disappointed because we haven’t won the match but in the second half we needed a response and we got that.”
Wayne Rooney scored the only goal of the match that included a red card to Cristiano Ronaldo.
“I thought he was going to catch the ball!” said Hughes.
“So it was handball. It was a soft one, if you can have soft sendings off, but it was clearly a second bookable offence.”
