Mark Hughes spoke to CUTV after United’s 1-1 draw with Solihull Moors at Brunton Park.
On the point against the Moors, he said: “I was reasonably pleased with the performance, certainly finished stronger of the two sides.
“Towards the end, they were hanging on really in terms of throwing their bodies, blocking all our shots, and in fairness, they defended exceptionally well. Any team that defended less competently than they did tonight would have been beaten.
“I thought we'd finish the stronger team, had some good moments, had opportunities to win it.
“Thought we had done with the ball in the box that the keeper made a bit of a mess of, but we're still on bin.
“We're a little bit down. I felt today we played a lot better than we did at the weekend in terms of our general play and our ability to really ask questions of the opposition, albeit we didn't score as many.
“But overall, not a result or performance to be despondent about.”
Bevis Mugabi thought he had grabbed a late winner for the Blues, but referee Andrew Miller adjudged there to be a foul on the visitors' keeper Laurie Walker.
On the incident, he said: “I mean, there's a genuine challenge. I think it's Bevis that just goes in, and I think the keeper was honest.
“He probably says that he took his eye off it, and they seem to have just bounced.
“There might have been contact, but goalkeepers expect that in the box later on in the game. So yeah, it could have gone our way. The referee saw fit to chalk it off, but at that point, we were the more likely team to win.”
There were five changes to last Saturday’s starting line-up for United, which Mark said were to combat the Moors’ direct threats: “Well, we knew how they played. They're very big on set plays and long balls and direct play, and working on seconds.
“I needed guys that would be able to cope with that. Personnel-wise, I felt the team needed to be bigger than it was at the weekend. For the most part, I was pleased with what they put out.
“I thought it was important to, obviously guys that haven't had game time at Brunton Park, it was important to get them on the pitch. I thought Bevis and Sam; it was important for them, Josh came in, did okay.
“Overall, I think I've always made the point that we're going to need everybody, and I think that's pretty much everybody in the squad, albeit the guys coming back from injury, that's pretty much everybody in the squad that's played a part. So that's how it's going to be this year.”
Archie Davies picked up the man of the match award after a powerful performance on the right, which impressed Mark, he said: “I thought he was excellent.
“Initially, I thought both him and Sam, certainly in the first half, could have got a little bit higher, and I think we talked about that at half-time.
“As a consequence of getting a little bit higher and off the shoulder of the wing-backs, then we were able to penetrate higher up the pitch, and that helped us, I felt.
On Jack Ellis starting in midfield, he said: “I felt I needed more physicality in there tonight, and I think that was borne out, he was really competitive in there, so we had to have guys that could get around and come out with the ball.
“Once again, I thought Harvey did really well again in terms of his general work.
“We had plenty of shots on goal, plenty of blocked shots, on and off the night we win that game comfortably, but they defended, as I said, for their lives, so they'll be delighted with the point they've taken from us, but on reflection we can't be too upset because it's a long old season.
“Teams are going to come in here, we're going to try and make it difficult and get everybody behind the ball and look to break on us, so we've got to be vigilant.
“We made a mistake obviously for their goal, I didn't really feel that they looked like scoring apart from a mistake at that point, that could have changed the game, but showing good character, good personality to come back and in the end could have won it.”
Speaking on building into the season he said: “We're still getting up to speed, the guys haven't been in the building that long so yeah, they'll get better and like I said, in terms of how we approached the game and the questions we asked of decent opposition, I thought it was a decent performance.
“I think in terms of where we need to improve, there's elements of our play that clearly we can do better, but that's a consequence of a season, you build into the season and you get better as the season goes on.”
On Mugabi, he continued: “Bevis looked very comfortable there, he got a little bit of cramp just before the goal and that just restricted him to recover his position but overall I thought he was excellent, fed actually really well in that second half, good angle and good accuracy to his passing to get actually higher up the pitch.
“He looked a good level player, which we all know he is.”
The visitors boasted a long throw, a threat which the Blues have faced on numerous occasions already this season, he said: “It's a battle of powers of the game, you don't mind it, well I did mind that it took an age for the referee to really move the game forward so we've got multi-ball and we're waiting an age to get the ball back into play and that shouldn't be the case, that's driven by the referee so he needs to be better on that.
Ahead of Saturday’s tea-time kick-off at Wealdstone, he said: We'll look at it, like I said, I wasn't too displeased in terms of the general performance, yeah we always want to win, you can't win every game, we always attempt to and try to do our best and affect the opposition but yeah, always have to factor the opposition in.
“They're there to make it difficult for you, and credit to them, defended really well, they'll be happy with the points, in the end, we'll look back and say well maybe that point's a good one against a team that didn't want to get beaten.”
He continued: “All teams in this league are a test, we'll go there and yeah, like I said, I think we're in decent form, if you count the last few pre-season games we were something like seven, eight on beating ourselves, bring it on.”
