There are other forces at work at Manchester City it seems and their very presence undermines the manager, Mark Hughes. It is a desperately difficult role that he has got at the moment.
I have always had a high regard for Hughes, both as a man and a manager, but I think he has found it difficult to change the culture of the Manchester City. I think they were very laissez-faire under Sven Goran Eriksson who is famously laid back with players and I think to have a hard-liner like Hughes has been a step too far for some of the players. Now they are professional and it is up to them to adapt to the environment in which they find themselves but the stories I hear is that some of them have really struggled to come to terms with the fact they are required to be at a particular place at a particular time for example. The basics like turning up for training.
I don’t envy Mark Hughes at the moment because I think he is getting pressure from both sides, from players who are struggling to adapt to his methods – and there is nothing wrong with those methods because he we have seen him have relative success at Blackburn and Wales in the past – and then on the other side from these men with enormous wealth who I believe cannot fully understand what football is all about.
I think they see it as a plaything, I don’t know that they absolutely know what they have got themselves into. They have bought into the glamour of The Premier League, I don’t know necessarily that they have bought into the reality yet.
I think it is nonsensical paying the kind of money that Manchester City are for Wayne Bridge, I don’t see over the long term how it is going to be sustainable. The other thing that concerns me is that just before Abramovich came into English football four or five years ago, we had got to the stage where clubs were just beginning to address the fact that they were overpaying both in terms of fees and wages, and then of course Abramovich blew everything out of the window and of course the other clubs had to try and compete.
The same seems to be happening here. We have had a bit of calming in terms of wages over the last couple of seasons, but now we have got another player on the scene with an even bigger chequebook and it is going mad again! It is not just Manchester City’s conduct in all of this that concerns me, it is also the effect it has on other clubs chasing the dream.
Why would players like Kaka or Sergio Aguero join City at the moment? You look at the English league table and you realise that Manchester City have a long way to go before they become competitive even in that arena. You think why on earth would you swap one of the glamour clubs and the potential for major honours for an existence at Eastlands at the moment which is uncertain?
I can’t believe Robinho hasn’t had that thought a few times since he signed his contract, he must wonder some days what he is doing there in the midst of all this.
I think the credit crunch is bound to have some kind of an impact on the transfer window as a whole, I don’t think football administrators can bury their head in the sand and believe that they can operate as they did in the past, because no one in any area of business, anywhere in the world, can afford to take that attitude.
I’m sure there will be some more big deals, Defoe and Bridge being the first two, but traditionally they tend to happen in the last two or three days in the window when push comes to shove and the negotiations are that much keener because of the time pressure.
I think we have probably got two or three weeks of speculation ahead of us before we get to the real meat and business of the transfer window, that’s my view.