City will face United in the Premier League on Sunday.
Hughes said: “You have to understand the top managers don’t get beaten very often so sometimes they don’t take it as well as other managers.
“You have to get used to getting beaten sometimes, myself included.
“When I was at Blackburn, we beat United 4-3. I think maybe Sir Alex was a bit critical of the approach of some of my players and he singled out Andy Todd, which I thought was unfair at the time and I said so afterwards.”
