Hughes and Bowen interview

An interesting piece by Guillem Balague in Monday's Times and on his website. It's a transcript of a staged conversation between Marks Hughes and Bowen. It's a really weird way to do a piece about City (whose idea was it?), but makes for interesting reading.

There's a few interesting bits in there, the most probably the level of backing Hughes gets from the new owners:

Manchester City football club is going to change a lot, starting with the appearance. We are having a major refurbishment of the training ground, a new gym that will cost a significant amount of money. The new owners want information, they have asked to be told what is needed and they will give us the resources to do it. You put the arguments forward and they will back you very quickly — you don’t have to wait for decisions or committees or board rooms! They just make decisions and the switch is flicked.

Earlier in the interview, Hughes makes a comment that may well be intended to quash rumours of a top-down transfer policy:

I’m in charge of the football part of this business. There have been lots of changes at Manchester City and there are going to be more in the future, but the one constant that will always be in place is the manager. I will make decisions and the club will act upon them accordingly — that’s how it should be. It has to be a clear direction to where we are going. That will obviously come from me and the input from my coaches only.

We hear that Hughes is going to control transfer policy so much now that I'm getting bored of it. And there was time for Hughes to mention his big idea:

The best players will always help you achieve that. It is also important to have empathy for the football club as well. I think we have a real chance to cultivate that at City because we’ve young players who have come up through the ranks.

I can't quite get across how much I agree with him on this. It's a demonstrable fact that all successful club sides are founded on a core of players with experience of playing together, some of whom came through the club's youth system. And with Richards and Johnson both contracted to 2013, Hart and Sturridge soon to be offered new deals, not forgetting Ireland and SWP or hungry new imports like Jo, Zabaleta and even Robinho, we have the tools to achieve this.