The Welshman made the claims despite watching his side surrender a 2-1 lead to take a point from their visit to Hull City on Sunday.

City's weakness on the road has seen them collect just five points from a possible 21 away from home, but Hughes saw enough in the 2-2 draw at the KC Stadium to convince him better times lay ahead.

Stephen Ireland provided the standout performance, completing a first-half double with a delightful curled effort to put Man City in front before the break.

Daniel Cousin had earlier given Hull the lead after a horrendous back pass from Tal Ben-Haim, before Geovanni restored parity with a deflected free kick.

"We needed a positive result and a positive performance and I think that's what we got," said Hughes.

top sides

"Ideally, we'd have preferred three points but key was to have an improvement on away performances.

"In recent weeks they haven't been anywhere near what they needed to be to get points at Premier League level.

"So, we've got a point. It could have been more, it could have been three, but we'll take it and it sets us up for the games we have ahead of us."

Arsenal and Manchester United are next up in the league for Hughes and his side and the Welshman hopes the Eastlands club are over a slump which saw them lose three consecutive matches before Sunday's result.

"We're not the finished article yet, we're very early in our development and it's going to take time," he said.

"I've said this week that along the way there will be a little bit of pain and we've gone through some of that already.

"But hopefully the way we played today, with top sides coming up, will help us."