Manchester City sacking Mark Hughes is ridiculous, says Steve Bruce

Sunderland manger Steve Bruce blasted the sacking of Mark Hughes as ‘ridiculous’.

Hughes took charge of Manchester city for the last time in their 4-3 win against Sunderland to make way for Roberto Mancini.

Bruce, a former Manchester United team-mate of Hughes, claimed the axing of another British manager will discourage the country’s young coaches from staying in the game.

He said: "I didn’t know about what had happened to Mark until after the match. I'm disappointed for Mark but nothing surprises me any more.

"It's just ridiculous and unbelievable. If we’re not careful we're going to stop young British coaches taking up management.

"They are going to think why the hell should they go into this game when you don’t get a chance.

"Coaches have to go through years of courses to get their licence. The one thing they need then is a bit of time, but they don’t get it.

"You can't build football club in 18 months or in one transfer window. You need a bit of time.

"There was a statistic yesterday that in the Championship the average stay for  a manager is 18 months. It's ridiculous.

"The Premier League is slightly better than the Championship because you’ve got Sir Alex Ferguson, Arsene Wenger and David Moyes who have been around for a number of years, but we don’t encourage the young people enough."

Bruce was equally unimpressed with the refereeing of Andre Marriner, who gave City a penalty and sent of Michael Turner for 'elbowing' Gareth Barry.

"I was also disappointed with the performance of the referee," Bruce said. "I wrote to Keith Hackett about him six weeks ago and his decisions today were a joke.

"I tried to sign Craig Bellamy three times and he’s a fantastic player, but that wasn't a penalty. We’ll be appealing against the red card because it was a shuddering challenge by two honest players.’

"It was a fantastic match and we deserved something from it."