'I'm with familiar faces, people I would trust with my life and when you are comfortable like that, you would give everything for them. The rest just comes off the back of that.'I've been with Mark Hughes since I was 16. If anyone knows me as a player, it's him. He doesn't do anything special for me before a game. I just know where I am. Sir Bobby Robson did the same for me. He looked to get the best out of each individual. Some managers don't do that. Others do.
'It's not that I feel especially appreciated at Manchester City. I just know where I am. The manager pulled me in at the start of the season and straightaway said, "I'd back you against anyone. I know what you are like. If you are fit, I'd put my money on you, so just go out there and get your place".
It's rare that you hear players talk about managers and coaches in terms as admiring as this. But the relationship between Bellamy and the Hughes/Mark Bowen/Eddie Niedzwiecki is one of the great stories of this City team. When we signed Bellamy he said that their presence at the club was one of the main factors in his decision to join:
Regardless, there can be no doubting that this was a genuine masterstroke from Hughes, and that Bellamy has been a very astute acquisition. And not just because of how useful Hughes has been to him. The relationship is two-way: Bellamy is clearly very useful for Hughes. Every time he berates the other players in training or in matches he is also acting as the management's proxy - driving the players towards the standards that he and Hughes expects. When he famously tore into Robinho after the shameful loss at Fratton Park last season he must have been acting with Hughes' approval. He is a crucial player to the Hughes project, a key agent to Sparkyisation - and when Kolo Touré is playing African Nations Cup I would not be too surprised if Bellamy is handed the armband. He has earnt it.
"It (Hughes and his coaching team) was a big factor, because they are people that I have worked with since I was 18...They know me better than anybody-else in the football game, and they are people I completely trust in....They have progressed me massively, and I owe them a lot"Many City fans doubted in January that Bellamy was the right man for the club, given his record of disruption. I wrote that people had ignored the fact that Bellamy's best moments - in terms of both performance and behaviour - had come under Hughes' management, and that Hughes' decision should therefore be supported. In a sense I've been proven right, but I must admit to not realising quite how good Bellamy would be when fit and focussed: I said that he was 'no Nicolas Anelka' but on current form I'm not sure that's true.
Regardless, there can be no doubting that this was a genuine masterstroke from Hughes, and that Bellamy has been a very astute acquisition. And not just because of how useful Hughes has been to him. The relationship is two-way: Bellamy is clearly very useful for Hughes. Every time he berates the other players in training or in matches he is also acting as the management's proxy - driving the players towards the standards that he and Hughes expects. When he famously tore into Robinho after the shameful loss at Fratton Park last season he must have been acting with Hughes' approval. He is a crucial player to the Hughes project, a key agent to Sparkyisation - and when Kolo Touré is playing African Nations Cup I would not be too surprised if Bellamy is handed the armband. He has earnt it.
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