Hughes insists he's right man for Man City future

Manchester City boss Mark Hughes bristles at claims he's not the man to take lead the club into a new era of big-name superstars.

Hughes told the Daily Mail: "I don’t buy that I am not big enough to manage the best players.

"It is not as if I am green behind the gills. I have been a manager for 10 years, I have been in the Premier League for five years. To have people questioning my ability is annoying because I know my ability, I know the ability of my staff, too, and the way we work is second to none. What should never be levelled at us is that we don’t know what we are doing or that we don’t know in what direction we want the club to go.

"It frustrates me, this perception that there are only a handful of guys in the world who can take a training session.

"It feels like I’m attempting a hard sell here, but I’ll wager Manchester City has the best qualified coaching staff in the country. And a badge isn’t everything, but I have watched some of the greatest coaches and, believe me, they are doing little that is different. They are all sponges, they are all thieves, they absorb what they have seen others do and then take it in their own direction.

"I know the players at Manchester City get the same treatment they would get at the biggest clubs in Europe. That is my way.

"Any player taking a step up to join Manchester City will notice the difference, and any player who has come from an elite club will not see the join. Roque Santa Cruz came to Blackburn Rovers from Bayern Munich, which was the most professional club I ever played for, and he had no problem with how we worked on a daily basis.

"I played at this level and higher. I know all of the little things that go into making a player happy. Munich taught me that. They were a million miles ahead of anything I had seen in terms of preparation. They understood what affected players.

"At Barcelona we were left to get on with it and, for me, at a young age, that was too much too soon. I didn’t want to leave Manchester United. I had no language, I had no car, I had a house with a fantastic fireplace, but I needed logs and I didn’t know how to get logs. I’d see these logs piled up outside people’s houses but I had no idea how to ask where they came from. I got so desperate I was walking around thinking about nicking some. It took me three months to even work out how to get a car.

"On day one at Munich, home, car, all of it was sorted. I’ve never forgotten that."