MARK HUGHES is under instructions to supply Thaksin Shinawatra with a minimum top-six finish, and qualification for Europe, at Manchester City if he wants to avoid the same fate as Sven-Goran Eriksson.
Hughes, whose appointment was confirmed yesterday, has been left in no doubt the owner will not tolerate anything but a concerted effort to gatecrash the English Premier League's "big four".
Thaksin's refusal to countenance anything less led to Eriksson being paid off after one season and Hughes will be under even more pressure given the amount of money at his disposal this summer.
A club-record deal for the Brazilian striker Jo has been arranged with CSKA Moscow, at a cost of £18 million (€23 million), and Hughes has identified David Bentley as his next target, with Manchester City preparing a bid of about £7 million (€9 million) for a player who has only a year left on his contract at Hughes's former club Blackburn Rovers.
In total Thaksin will make about £50 million (€63 million) available to Hughes and the Thai's associates are still in advanced talks with Ronaldinho, a proposed deal that has been laughed off all around the world but is being treated with deadly seriousness in the City boardroom.
Hughes will, in effect, have more to spend this summer than any manager bar Alex Ferguson at Manchester United and whoever chooses to replace Avram Grant at Chelsea. With that, however, comes a form of pressure he will rarely have experienced at Blackburn or in his previous job in charge of Wales.
Thaksin has shown he is not only wealthy but also ruthless and it has been made clear to Hughes he must deliver a significant return. To put the manager's task in context, City have not finished in the Premier League's top six since its inception and last finished that high in the top flight in 1992.
As a former Manchester United player with an illustrious past at Old Trafford, Hughes has received only a lukewarm welcome from City supporters.
He has signed a three-year contract after meeting the club's new executive chairman, Garry Cook, in London on Tuesday night, when it was pressed upon him that the club wanted a quick answer.
By then, a compensation package had been agreed with Blackburn, but City's concern was that Hughes was holding out in the belief he was second to Carlo Ancelotti on Peter Kenyon's shortlist at Chelsea. It soon transpired that Roman Abramovich, Chelsea's owner, did not share his chief executive's view and Hughes was able to give Cook the speedy answer that had been requested.
"I am delighted to welcome Mark on board," said Cook. "In our view he is the brightest young manager in the game. He made it clear to us from the moment we met that he shared our vision and ambition to make City one of the top sides in the country."
Cook, previously an executive for Nike, went on to describe Hughes as "always our number one target", which was being economical with the truth, to say the least, given Thaksin spent several weeks trying to persuade Portugal's coach, Luiz Felipe Scolari, to accept the job.
What cannot be disputed, however, is that Hughes's appointment represents an early success for Cook at the end of an unstable period that is likely to see the club's chief executive, Alistair Mackintosh, move on before the start of next season.
Hughes gets unveiled at a 9.30am news conference today while Blackburn set about bringing in a replacement, with Sam Allardyce, Paul Ince, Steve McClaren and Gordon Strachan in contention.
The Blackburn chairman, John Williams, said of Hughes: "He leaves the club in a strong position with three consecutive top-10 finishes and an excellent squad. We have helped Mark establish himself as one of the most sought-after young British managers in the business, having . . . had no club management experience. We wish him well. We'd have liked him to stay, but he made it clear he wanted a fresh challenge."
Guardian Service
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