Back to grim reality for City

Manchester City fans may be dreaming of signing Kaka but the nine points and seven places that separate them from Wigan tells them everything about the current reality for Mark Hughes’ team.

City have lost five of their 10 Premier League games at Eastlands and last weekend’s postponed game at Portsmouth means they have not played in a fortnight since they suffered an embarrassing 3-0 home defeat to Nottingham Forest.

AC Milan revealed on Thursday they had received a ‘colossal’ bid from City for Brazilian superstar Kaka and were considering the world-record offer.

Milan acknowledged for the first time the bid on their official TV channel, claiming City had bid 150 million euros (197.5 million dollars) for the former World Player of the Year and offered him a salary of 15 million euros (19.8 million dollars) a season.

Wayne Bridge, who is the only arrival since the transfer window opened, will finally make his debut but City supporters’ thoughts will be dominated once again by the possibility of new players arriving before the transfer deadline.

But Hughes insists there is no chance of his players being distracted by potential arrivals.

He said: “You can’t worry about players that aren’t here. The players that we have here are good players.

“We’re missing a number of players through injury, the likes of Michael Johnson, Valeri Bojinov and Martin Petrov, then we will improve the situation.

“Ideally we could do with some players to come in and supplement the talent that we already have here but we still feel that before the window closes we’ll be able to bring good players here and that still stands true.

“We’ve got half the window to go. The little bit of impatience is because you want the players in early so you can work with them and integrate them into the team as quickly as possible.”

The Welshman was at Old Trafford to see Wigan perform admirably in a 1-0 defeat to his old club Manchester United in midweek.

And Hughes is full of admiration for the job that his old team-mate Steve Bruce has done at the JJB Stadium.

He added: “You can understand the run of form that they’re on is there for all to see because they’re working hard for each other.

“They’re consistent and credit to them. They get on with their business quietly, they’ve picked up results and they’re on a good run of form.

“Maybe if they continue in the same vein until the end of the season then they’ll have aspirations of Europe. I’m sure Steve won’t want to talk about that but that may well be a possibility.”

Hughes will be without Stephen Ireland due to suspension and Dietmar Hamann is set to undergo surgery on a toe injury suffered in training.

But Robinho could return from an ankle injury and Shaun Wright-Phillips may feature after a hamstring problem.

Bruce’s side have moved into a comfortable position in the top half of the table but the admiring glances at their players have now turned into firm interest.

Emile Heskey, Amr Zaki, Antonio Valencia have all been linked with moves and the Latics have now turned down a ten million pound bid from Tottenham for Honduran midfielder Wilson Palacios.

But his fellow midfielder Lee Cattermole admits that keeping hold of Palacios is vital to Wigan sustaining their good form.

He said: “I definitely hope Wilson stays. We want to keep hold of our best players and finish as high up the league as we can.

“If we start letting people like him go, we are going to suffer unless we go and replace them straight away.

“It’s in our interest to keep him. Wilson is a very good player ~ in fact, we have a team full of a very good players.

“If everyone stays and we keep working hard, this team will finish well up there in the table, I’m certain of that.”