It’s not supposed to be like this when you’re the richest club in the league. Two points off the bottom (albeit in a league that’s currently tighter than the local benefits office) and looking for all the world like you wish the winter months would take a walk and you could be back playing in the summer sunshine. Yet I bet there’s not a Manchester City fan in the country that didn’t think their club would be able to mess up unbelievable good fortune in one way or another.

After yesterday’s home defeat to Tottenham Hotspur, themselves emerging from a nightmare opening to the season, the early optimism stemming from the City takeover and their subsequent obtaining of the British transfer record has almost completely evaporated and at this stage, many City fans have given up the first half of the season as a bad job and are looking forward to the January sales, where the proxy money in their pockets will be spent on dream players the like of which haven’t been seen since Shaun Goater was knocking them in.

But you can bet that Mark Hughes will not be the manager with his fingers wrapped around the safe key. City chairman Khaldoon Al Mubarak today gave Mark Hughes the full backing of the board, which in the past has signalled the lighting of the fuse which is going to burn down faster than the manager in question thinks it will. It remains to be seen if Hughes really is held in the highest esteem by the billionaire board but don’t hold your breath. My own personal guess is that Hughes will be in the Newcastle hotseat before you can say ‘Wor Jackie.’

So while it’s not exactly new pants time for Manchester City, just how can we explain what’s going wrong at a club where all should be sweetness and light? Objectively speaking, they have it all there at their disposal. Brilliant star striker, competent back-up, a mad midfielder currently playing the best football of his life, decent young English ‘keeper, maybe a future England captain in the back-line and a fine young Welshman taking his chance when he’s given it. Their manager is thought of (there’s no ‘was’ about it) as one of the finest British managers this country has to offer and their fans, craving any iota of success, seeing some champagne football at a spankingly modern stadium.

While Hughes wants time to build his club, his club don’t want to wait. It must be like taking care of a bunch of teenagers. A rich collection of men who see a league that attracts the top names in Europe and wins pan-European competitions, rather than a league where you have to visit Fulham, Portsmouth and Middlesbrough in snowy February. They weren’t designed to wait for stability.

Like most things in life, in football you should be careful what you wish for. All those City fans who saw United romp away with title after title, remaining there or thereabouts when City languished in League One, must have hoped that one day, they’d be back competing with the Reds as that was where they belonged. But these processes must happen organically, over a period of time. It’s been a long time since you could buy a team completely off the peg that will win you titles galore. It just doesn’t happen any more.

There’s an old saying – money can’t buy you class. This is true of everything except football. An obscene amount of cash can get you any player you like, but if I can use a modern analogy, a ten million quid lottery win for a binman sometimes just means a rich binman. Trouble is, Manchester City’s new owners were so desperate for success straight away that they bought big straight away, bidding huge sums for star players and hitting the jackpot with one. They will do the same again in January, but the problem with having a dressing room full of ego is that you need a manager with their egos combined to keep them all in check. And for the life of me, I can’t see Mark Hughes being that man.

Hughsie was different in his playing days. On the field he was a mean, scoring, spitting snarling machine who shouted at refs, team mates and managers. Off the field he was by all accounts mild mannered, suggesting that adrenalin and will alone were the things that drove his talent. He has taken that thoughtful approach into management and is much more in the style of a Wenger or O’Neill than a Fergie of Keegan. Hughes had a club at Blackburn where he controlled everything, and it was his empire. If he wanted a player, it was his decision.

Not so, Manchester City. When quizzed about the potential signing of Ronaldinho in the summer, Hughes looked embarrassed rather than thrilled. He knew what was coming – an intense media glare and unrealistic expectations from the fans. All of a sudden, that time and steady drip of cash he’d been promised to build a credible rival to United had been yanked away.

Hughes has yet to test his board’s patience when it comes to signings as their takeover went through so close to the transfer deadline. He has played his cards tightly to his chest on who he thinks he needs when the window opens, but right now it’s not star names Hughes could do with. As many of the country’s leading clubs will say, defenders rarely warrant headlines unless they’re playing magnificently. Odds are that while Hughes is scouting Europe looking for options to shore up his back line, his board’s representatives are putting out feelers over how Kaka, Podolski, Klose, Benzema and Villa feel about moving to the lesser-fancied Blue side.

Put simply, Manchester City and Mark Hughes diverged some time ago, and it’s inevitable that sooner or later the board will start wooing other options. This would not only be a grave mistake but an unpopular one. City’s results have not yet suggested they’re anywhere near their potential but some of their play since the start of September has been delightfully sublime and it would be unfair to suggest it’s all because of Robinho’s influence. There is dark talk that the Brazilians in the squad have the knives out for Hughes’ style of play, and to side with the players over the manager would be a huge balls-up by those in charge, should that happen.

I wrote about this potential disaster way back on the eve of the Robinho signing, and was slagged to high heaven by City fans desperate to pin-prick my jealousy. I’m not jealous, I’m just sorry for Hughsie, which I never thought I would be after his Manchester United shenanigans. But I would sound a note of caution, which will have as much effect on the City fans as an elephant’s flea’s flea. Remember Ramos. Not just for what he represents, but because he might become a familiar face if City’s owners don’t discover some common sense.

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