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Premiership Football News: City Spending in Perspective

Marc Fox

Spending £200 million in 12 months, you'd expect Mark Hughes' Manchester City side to have changed a bit.

But the tale of Hughes' overhaul of the Eastlands club using the wealth of Sheikh Mansour was fully told on Saturday with just one starter from the opening Premier League campaign a year ago retaining his place for this season's opener.

That player was Micah Richards, England full-back under Steve McLaren, while another academy graduate Steven Ireland also featured in both games after coming on as a late substitute in City's 4-2 defeat to an Aston Villa side which included Gareth Barry on the opening day of the 2008-09 season.

For the record City's starting side 12 months ago was Hart, Corluka, Richards, Ben-Haim, Garrido, Etuhu, Fernandes, Johnson, Petrov, Elano, Evans.

Of that starting XI, Vedran Corluka (Spurs), Gelson Fernandes (St Etienne), Elano (Galatasaray) and Ched Evans (Sheffield United) have all left the club, while Joe Hart will spend this season loaned to Birmingham City.

Hughes' selections for the 2-0 defeat of Blackburn Rovers bore virtually no resemblance with debuts handed to Kolo Tore, Barry, Emmanuel Adebayor and Carlos Tevez. Roque Santa Cruz is expected to make his bow against Wolves this weekend.

However, despite the glut of comings and goings, midfielder Ireland maintained that the biggest change is the improved harmony in the squad.

"The difference between this season and the last is the team spirit," said Ireland, who scored City's second against Rovers.

"From the moment we arrived back for pre-season the manager has been drumming it into us about how we had to be better and mentally stronger this season.

"He said we had to have a better attitude and he was right. There were some bad habits in this squad last season."

It is widely believed that Hughes regretted entering last season with a squad chock full of youngsters and overseas recruits, neither group of which had significant Premier League experience.

But the former Wales international striker rectified any mistake before this campaign.

Team spirit is certain to be galvanised by the absence of the Brazilian clique. Robinho remains for the time being, but Elano, the current Brazil national team midfielder, has been allowed to move to Turkey and Jo's loan deal at Everton had been gratefully extended.

However it's the deliberate strategy of rebuilding with established performers in England which has been notable.

With Hughes' unrelenting transfer pursuits, the club which last won the title in 1968 and which as recently as a decade ago were playing in England's third tier have started the new season by banishing their biggest failing of last.

The side won just twice on the road all year, form which only too starkly highlighted a brittleness on their travels.

But with the defensive shield of Barry and Toure in place, Hughes is aiming to turn that completely on its head and the proof of his tactics were in full view this weekend.

He said afterwards: "Buying character as well as ability was in my thoughts. We looked at players that we knew had the benefit of Premier League experience.

"Last season, we were light in terms of Premier League games played. We knew that against almost every team in the Premier League we had less games played than anybody else.

"We had a young side and we had lots of foreign guys that hadn't been here very long. We knew we had to address that. We have done that with good quality Premier League players and you can see the difference."

Marc Fox

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