Stoke City Appoints Mark Hughes as Their New Manager.

Mark Hughes Becomes Stoke Manager After Tony Pulis' Exit.
Mark Hughes Becomes Stoke Manager After Tony Pulis’ Exit.

After Welshman Tony Pulis left Stoke City by mutual consent last week, Mark Hughes has been appointed manager by the club, six months after losing his QPR job.

Mark Hughes.
Mark Hughes.

The former Manchester City manager has been out of work since leaving QPR last November.

He was sacked and replaced by Harry Redknapp after failing to secure a single victory in the opening twelve matches of the 2012/13 season. Throughout his eleven months spell at Loftus Road, he won eight out of a possible 34 games in charge.

At his first news conference on Thursday noon, Hughes claimed the criticism of his time at QPR will spur him to greater success as Stoke manager.

“I have listened to what people have said about my managerial ability and I will use it as a motivation,” Welshman Hughes said.

“I have had something like 270 games as a Premier League manager, but people do tend to look at the last year or so.

“But I don’t regret moving to QPR. A lot of managers have gone there and found it difficult.”

The 49- year- old who has signed a three- year contract at Stoke also believes there were slip- offs tantamount to his difficult 11- month spell at Loftus Road.

“It was tough, and mistakes were made,” Hughes added. “I made mistakes, mistakes that I will learn from, and other people made mistakes too.

“I was given the task of keeping them in the Premier League and thankfully I did that. Twelve games later through I lost my job, because we didn’t get the results we wanted at that time.

“If I am honest, we all tried to run there before we could walk, and that was the mistake that we made.”

Club chairman Peter Coates told the Stoke Sentinel: “We had lots of inquiries about the job, including some very interesting names, but we decided Mark Hughes was a fit for us.”