“I felt it was clearly a penalty, the referee and his assistant were certainly in good position to make a decision,” Hughes told Sky Sports. “He clearly stopped the ball going in.”

“These are the decisions that change games, and people have to understand that.

“I’m disappointed that we’ve come out of the game with nothing, I thought throughout the game we created more chances in open play.

“We’ve got done on a set piece but for the majority of the game we were progressive and played the better football

“We’ve come away with no reward but there’s a lot of things we’ve taken out of the game. The lads have battled hard and they’ll be in good spirits on the way home.

“It’s a defeat but we can build on it. After conceding the goal we dominated and created a number of chances, had balls cleared off the line. On another day they go in but it wasn’t out night tonight.”