Hughes relieved to avoid defeat

Drawing with Hull City on a chilly afternoon on Humberside probably does not figure anywhere on the Abu Dhabi United Group's blueprint for world domination but then after three straight defeats in the league, this actually counted as progress for Mark Hughes' team. It could so easily have been a classic City humiliation.

It was a disaster in the making for Hughes given that the game's best player, and scorer of Hull's second goal, was Geovanni, the man who left Manchester City in the summer for nothing. With £50m lavished on Robinho and Jo it would have been agonising if the one Brazilian on the pitch who turned out to be decisive had been the one who got away. In fact it would have been exactly the kind of cruel irony that has befallen Manchester City so many times. Instead, Hughes was rescued by two goals from Stephen Ireland who was arguably his side's best player after Robinho – made captain for this game in the absence of the suspended Richard Dunne.

Dunne, the Manchester City captain, has been losing the plot of late but his replacement Tal Ben Haim did no better, gifting the first Hull goal to Daniel Cousin with an unforgiveably lame backpass.

The new owners of Manchester City have done a good job this week of playing down any pressure, real or perceived, on their manager but there was no doubting that Hughes looked relieved that he had got out with a point. "We needed a positive result and performance and although we would have preferred to win this was an improvement," he said. "We are not the finished article, we are still early in our development and it will take time."

Not too much time because they play Arsenal at home on Saturday in five days, a meeting of two absurdly misfiring teams of talented footballers with Hughes' side having won just one of the last eight league games. Yesterday's game was strangely absorbing, two teams who were happy to slug it out on the counter-attack while their defences gave away goals carelessly. It left City just three points from the bottom of the league, yet 12th on goal difference but it could have been so much worse.

On one of those Sunday afternoons in northern England when no trendy skin-tight, under-the-shirt garment can keep out the cold, Hughes' team started in the most abject fashion. They passed the ball haphazardly back towards their own goal in the build-up to Hull's first, Ben Haim putting the tin hat on it by selling Joe Hart short and letting Cousin score with a chance so simple even the local celebrity MP John Prescott would have stuck it away.

Just to make matters worse, Cousin landed on Joe Hart, injuring the goalkeeper's ankle which, Hughes said, could rule him out for up to four weeks. In place of Hart he had to send on Kasper Schmeichel, never the best man for a crisis. From then Hughes' team did settle in some sort of pattern having been overrun in the early stages. It was not until the 37th minute that they equalised, Ireland's goal just as fortuitous as Cousin's had been.

This time it was Kamil Zayatte who was responsible for a defensive error so comical, that it looked as if he might even have tried to shepherd the ball into Ireland's path. He had cut out Robinho's half-hearted through-ball but, as he ran across his own area, took a touch that was too heavy. With the ball out of Zayatte's control, Ireland simply had to prod it into the Hull net.

The Republic of Ireland international scored his second just before half-time, this one a sweetly executed curling shot from the edge of the box that was shaped around George Boateng and into the left-hand corner of Boaz Myhill's goal. "I was disappointed at half-time to be down 2-1," said Phil Brown, the Hull manager. "I was going to make some early substitutions but in the end I didn't need to."

Geovanni is already an institution at the KC Stadium thanks to his goals against Tottenham and Arsenal this season and he added another just after the hour to level the scores. There is a hum of excitement about the place whenever he gets a free-kick within range of goal and it was no different on this occasion even if his shot did need a heavy deflection off Vincent Kompany to beat Schmeichel.

It was the seventh time in the last eight games Manchester City have conceded two or more goals but they had it coming. Would Brown swap his Brazilian Geovanni for Robinho? "No – because Geovanni was free and I haven't got £32m to spend," he said. "Robinho came up to me at the end of the game, I think he was speaking Spanish, and he seems like a very respectful guy."

Hughes said he did not want to take referee Dowd to task for a foul that was not given in the build-up to the free-kick that gave Hull their equaliser. He was not best pleased however with a sub-plot at the conclusion in which Dowd called for a Geovanni free-kick to be retaken twice, booking Shaun Wright-Phillips and Ireland in the process for encroaching. "You could argue that there was a bit of encroachment on the first one but to then start booking people?" Hughes said. "We were disappointed with that."

The result meant that Hull remain in sixth position, just three points off the Champions League places. At the end, Hughes' team pushed for a winner but it was unmistakeably half-hearted. They looked like a side who were just happy not to have been beaten.

Goals: Cousin (14) 1-0; Ireland (37) 1-1; Ireland (45) 1-2; Geovanni (60) 2-2.

Hull City (4-4-2): Myhill; McShane, Turner, Zayatte, Ricketts; Marney, Ashbee, Geovanni, Boateng (Halmosi, 85); Cousin (Barmby 77), King. Substitutes not used: Doyle, Duke (gk), Garcia, Folan, Giannakopoulos.

Manchester City (4-3-3): Hart (Schmeichel, 19); Zabaleta, Ben Haim, Richards, Garrido; Wright-Phillips, Kompany, Ireland; Vassell, Benjani (Jo, 76), Robinho. Substitutes not used: Ball, Onuoha, Elano, Hamann, Evans.

Referee: P Dowd (Staffordshire).

Booked: Hull City McShane, Marney; Manchester City Ben Haim, Wright-Phillips, Ireland.

Man of the match: Geovanni.

Attendance: 24,902.