Manchester City boss Mark Hughes would like to bring in five new players during the January transfer window. He told the Manchester Evening News: "We are looking for targets to balance the team.

"There are a lot of players out there who people are getting very excited about - some huge stars - but maybe not in the positions we are looking to strengthen.

"January is a very difficult window to negotiate for top players as they are inevitably involved with Champions League teams striving to win titles.

"To extract players from top clubs is very difficult as, quite simply, those clubs don't want to deal with you.

"The reality is that we have four or five positions to improve and we are working on it. There is a lot of speculation and the problem is that many people, agents, are trying to take advantage of it."