Robinho

At long last, Garry Cook has his superstar.

Having brought in Mark Hughes to replace Sven Goran-Eriksson, the purchase of a 'superstar' was the focus point of the club's summer movements. As Cook said, 'Richard Dunne doesn't roll off the tongue in Beijing'. We tried and failed for the pursuit of Ronaldinho. I hoped the plans would be shelved until January, with Hughes allowed to focus on more realistic targets.

But on the last evening of the transfer window, buoyed by a colossal new cash investment, MCFC broke the British transfer record for Robinho. Sky is reporting a fee of £32.5million - elsewhere it is £34million. It is the sum of City's two highest other fees paid: £19million for Jo and £13million for Nicolas Anelka.

This is a quite remarkable purchase. Mark Hughes called Robinho 'exceptionally talented' and a 'fantastic signing'. Aged 24, he has the perfect balance of experience and potential for City. Twice winner of both the Campeonato in Brazil (2002 and 2004) and also of La Liga in Spain (2007 and 2008), he also won the Copa America with Brazil in 2007. But it is also true that he has not performed for Real Madrid with much consistency. Easily distracted and occasionally lacking lacking focus, he certainly has space to expand into.

We now have three paulistanos to play in attack: Robinho, Elano and Jô. I imagine the first choice would be Robinho playing behind Jô, but in the absence of Petrov or Wright-Phillips (remember him?) Robinho could be deployed out wide. I don't know how fit Robinho is at the moment - he has not played yet for Real Madrid this season, but he is in the Brazil squad (along with Elano and Jô) for Brazil's two World Cup Qualifiers next week.