Having taken his spending as Manchester City manager beyond £200 million this summer, Mark Hughes already heads one table – the bookies’ list of candidates to become the first manager to be sacked this season – before a ball has even been kicked.
As Hughes prepares to take his team to his former club, Blackburn on Saturday afternoon for their opening game, the focus is already fixed on the world’s richest football club and nobody is under quite so much scrutiny as Hughes.
Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed al Nahyan will be expecting a return on his investment this season. The club’s first trophy since 1976 would be nice, but qualification for the Champions League is the prize most sought in Abu Dhabi.
It would seem the basic principle for Hughes is that more money equals more pressure, but he goes into the biggest campaign of his career insisting he has already weathered the storm.
“I don’t think I’m under more pressure than this time last year,” Hughes claims. “I’ve got more tools to do the job now, so I think I’m under less pressure. We’re in better shape than last season.
“We’ve added to the quality in the squad and, when you do that, you have a better chance of winning games. We made a list of all the honours this group of players have won and they include Champions League winners, Premier League winners, FA Cup winners, top international players, etc. The list is huge.
“You have to understand what it takes to win trophies and that’s what we have in this group now. You expect them to come to the fore when you have to come back from situations that look uncomfortable.”
City’s summer spending has dominated the domestic market and prompted criticism from the likes of Sir Alex Ferguson and Rafael Benitez, two managers rarely troubled by coming and goings in the blue half of Manchester.
Hughes claims the spending “will not be on this scale again”, but rivals’ jibes have been noted, particularly those from Ferguson, who called City a “small club with a small mentality”.
Hughes says: “I’m sure other managers will use that in their team talks and in their preparation for any game against City, just as I use certain things that are said about us.”
“Sometimes it helps my job when people question us because it brings us together as a group, but listen, we’re not kidding ourselves. We’ve raised our profile and there is a huge focus on us. We’ve raised it not only to the general public, but also to everybody in the Premier League.
“Those people are out there to stop us. They’re not just going to step aside and let us through.”
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