A number of foreign takeovers of top-flight clubs, such as: Liverpool and City's previous owner Thaksin Shinawatra, have not met fans' expectations, but Hughes believes Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan is more interested in long-term success than short-term thrills, trust us, they have the money to do it.
The sheikh has installed a new chairman, Khaldoon Al Mubarak, a 32-year-old American-educated businessman, who was at Eastlands to watch a Robinho-inspired City demolish Portsmouth 6-0.
If you look in the way they do business, historically they do it in the correct way. This people don’t take chances or big risks, unless they know of a ling term profit!! They know persistence enables people to sustain success and that is what they want, the right people in the right places and they will give them the assets to be productive. They have intellect of what needs to be done and recognize that it's not going to happen overnight, they are very realistic in that respect, they are going to build the club slowly and make sure that success is achievable by spending on the team, in quality staff, in facilities and resources. It’s incredible what money can do.
City triumphed 6-0 and Hughes described it as the best display by a team he has managed. Jo, Richard Dunne, Robinho and Shaun Wright-Phillips plus substitutes Ched Evans and Gelson Fernandes each scored in a shock all-round display.
We can say it was the best performance by one of Hughes’ teams and if they had to pick a day to impress people, Sunday the 21st was the day to do it. From start to finish their drive, firmness and ability to pick the right pass and create chances was evident for all to see. It was a fantastic day for the City.
Hughes picked out Robinho, Stephen Ireland, Wright-Phillips and Vincent Kompany as the star performers, (we stated that will soon happen) why? Well, their spectacular personal performances within a great team performance, they deserved a break. Stephen Ireland again was exceptional and has been for many weeks.
Portsmouth’s manager Harry Redknapp was shell-shocked and admitted his defense and goalkeeper David James all had "abysmal" games, can’t see a bright future there.
He seemed bitterly disappointed and we can guess he didn't see that coming, after hitting 3 wins in a row. They gave away two terrible goals in the first half, but towards the end of the first half, they had some chances and thought they could get back into the game. Defoe had a chance just after the break and then they played a pass and there were two of them running through on their goal.
Redknapp did not seem jealous about Hughes spending power and said his defense had played out of character. It was a chapter of errors and they did not have much to say for themselves afterwards.
They will now have a meeting, look at all the goals, see what went wrong…but the honest truth here is “money talks and gave a very good speech last Sunday.”
