Hughes angered by the coin thrower

Mark Hughes the manager for Stoke City, is angered by the “idiot” who threw a coin at Jack Butland, the goalkeeper.

The incident is under investigation by The Football Association. The coin throwing incident occurred at a Stoke’s win over Aston Villa and at the QPR’s Championship victory against Birmingham City.

Hughes stated “I think the referee was reporting it, I don’t know if he has officially, but the truth is I haven’t had an update.

“We know something was thrown in Jack Butland’s direction and the referee needed to make a note of it. Some idiot has seen that it has happened before and thought it would be funny to do it here.

“Unfortunately there are people out there who take pleasure and amusement from hurting other individuals. It’s a sad state of affairs.

“I was the victim of it myself when I was a player – it is something that has always happened unfortunately.”

Butland’s contract is said to expire next season. Hughes stated that he was frustrated over the wait for the new contract.

“It is difficult to get everybody in the same room at the same time,” he said. “It can take a while to sort that out. After one meeting concludes it takes a while to sort another. We are in between meetings at the moment.

“He has had a good season. The one area of his game that he was lacking was scoring goals. Thankfully he has added that to his game and that is maybe why more people are sitting up and taking notice of him now.

“This can’t be a one-off season, he needs to keep scoring goals, because if he does, he will be hugely successful with us.”