Our spending spree is over, declares City boss Hughes
MANCHESTER CITY manager Mark Hughes has declared the club’s staggering spending spree to be over, insisting he will not embark on any more radical recruitment drives.
Hughes splashed out £120m this summer on bringing six of the top flight’s biggest names to Eastlands, an amount that accounted for more than a quarter of the total spent during the transfer window.
The Welshman said he was forced to pay big money and fast-track sweeping changes in order to get his team challenging the Big Four’s stranglehold on Champions League places.
But having lured the likes of Carlos Tevez, Kolo Toure, Emmanuel Adebayor and Joleon Lescott to City, Hughes is satisfied the bulk of his rebuilding is now complete.
“We won’t be going into the market to this extent again,” said the former Blackburn and Wales boss. “There has been an unprecedented change in personnel. It was basically a process that should have been done over a three-to-five-year period but we have tried to make it happen in two windows.
“In future we will be looking to acquire players that will add value to the club and become great players at Manchester City rather than going out to the market and paying a premium because we need the players now.”
Hughes, who have a 100 per cent record from their three league games so far this campaign, is confident the rebuilding he has overseen has made the club a far more fearsome proposition. And he revealed plans for the summer of spending were drawn up in December during a meeting in Abu Dhabi with the club’s owner Sheikh Mansour and chairman Khaldoon al-Mubarak.
“The vast majority of the team is in my design,” Hughes added. “We are in good shape now, as we have bought well, and are in a better position than we were 12 months ago.”
With the vast outlay comes increased pressure, but Hughes is adamant his new-look team will rise to the challenge.
“There has been a huge amount of interest in what we have been doing,” he said. “That can be a bad thing but it can also be stimulating. It is not something that fazes us. We are enjoying being where we are.”
Hughes offset some of his spending yesterday when captain Richard Dunne’s £6m move to Aston Villa was confirmed after the Premier League had asked for more time to oversee the paperwork.