Manchester City assistant boss Mark Bowen admits they must be careful not to upset dressing room spirit with the next raft of signings they make in January.

"Possibly the hardest job will be careful selection of the players we bring in, but also moulding them into a team," he told City's website. "We have to make sure that we have a team.

"You can't just point at the best players in the world, it does not work that way. You have to man-manage them and motivate them, you have to carefully select who you bring in and who they will work around.

"But look at someone like Stephen Ireland, is there genuinely a better player than him in his position in this country at the moment? You cannot just look at names on paper just because they play for big teams overseas and think that they will do better jobs than people like Stephen.

"You might have the ability to bring in a few more world stars, but then find someone like Robinho could be disenfranchised, so it's a careful selection, but we will embrace it. We had success at Blackburn by bringing in the right type of players, albeit on a different budget, so it is important we get that situation right, and we are confident that we will do."