Manchester City

Alex Ferguson, has admitted that he see's Manchester City as no threat this coming season. That may be true but we'll have to let time and Man City to prove him wrong. It appears Alex is already getting early return on his surprise signing of Owen.

As many a great manager has said, your best team is not necessarily made of your best players. Its all about balance and movement and working well as an unit. Mark Hughes has always been successful with the hard working, ordinary player. He got Wales moving with a less than star studded squad and the same can be said about Blackburn. Hughes is an ordinary working class manager, a simple emotional team talk inspires his team of average players. Mark has always managed teams with few egos, and any that have existed are easily dealt with.

Mark now has and is still in pursuit of some of the world great players. Well we believe them to be great based on price tag, but really is Gareth Barry a world class player, I doubt it. What Barry is, is the ordinary working class player Hughes can inspire and motivate, the player Hughes management skills can get the best out off.

Now Hughes is surrounded by players on unimaginable salaries. Most players have bonuses built into their contract, if your player on £100,000 or more a week, what good is few thousand in a bonus. We can probably assume Mark is being paid less than some of his players, so automatically just as at Chelsea, his control of players is undermined.

Your thinking if a player fails to perform he'll destroy his career, most likely, but will they need football after earning the money they'll get on a two year contract at Man City. Football is no more than a routine, a procedure and act to fulfil a contract. Occasionally we will see such players do something amazing and convince ourselves that he is worth it.

Mark is a traditional manager of ordinary players, players like Barry, can he manage over paid, big ego players to success. Man City is another Chelsea in the making, but Chelsea had a manager whose personality out shone his stars, Hughes does not have that. Man City can be only one of two things, a success or a great failure, obvious yes, but when great failure comes at failing to win a top four league position and a cup, then it could be a short life for all at Man City.