"It was a difficult game for both sides and difficult for us to play our normal game," Hughes said after the match.
"We like to get Tugay on the ball and let him switch the play, but we had to take him off, battle through and I think we thoroughly deserved the win.
"We could have won more convincingly in the end, as they threw bodies forward and left space in behind, but it's now four wins from our last five games and we can put the Arsenal game down as a freak result.
"We're on a decent run and having a very similar period of results to last year, when we went on to have a great second half of the season. We've now got the opportunity on Monday to get close to where we were last year.
"The two strikers worked really hard for the cause and came up with two great finishes. Morten Gamst Pedersen also did well. He has looked a lot stronger in the past few weeks and has had more impact on games recently."