Hughes puts quality ahead of quantity

Mark Hughes insists Manchester City won't spend money for the sake of it during the January transfer window after admitting that the intense speculation surrounding the club's intentions is proving impossible to tone down.

Hughes, whose team face Everton at Eastlands on Saturday, is expected to make at least four signings in January, with Chelsea defender Wayne Bridge, Portsmouth's French midfielder Lassana Diarra, Blackburn forward Roque Santa Cruz and an experienced goalkeeper at the top of his list.

City's new-found wealth following the Abu Dhabi-funded takeover of the club September has already been emphasised by the dramatic deadline day swoop for 32.5 million pounds signing Robinho.

But City manager Hughes insists that he is only interested in adding quality to his current squad next month rather than bulking up with a host of big-name signings.

He said: “Everybody says that I am going to replace huge amounts of my players, but that's not the case. We're just going to add to the quality of what we've got here.

“The list of supposed targets keeps on growing and it will no doubt be bigger before we go into the market. The only thing I can assure people is we won't be buying them all!”

Brazilian ace Robinho is a doubt for the Everton clash due to an ankle injury, but Hughes has been forced to dismiss reports that the club's new owners are attempting to influence team selection and tactics.

He said: “The thought of (owner) Sheikh Mansour and chairman Khaldoon al-Mubarak sitting in a room doing tactics and sending them over by fax is a little bit ridiculous and we take it with a pinch of salt.

“We are hopeful that Robinho will be fit to face Everton, though. He's got a bit of discomfort when he sprints at full pace, but with these injuries, it's always the last five per cent that seems to drag on.

“You can have marked improvement – 80-90 per cent of the injury is cleared up. It's just that last 5-10 percent which drags on it makes the injury more long term.

“It's just the one sore point we are trying to resolve and if we can do that, hopefully he will be available to take some part in the game. Obviously he has done very little training for two or three weeks now, but hopefully he can play a part.”

Everton travel to City still searching for the form that earned them a UEFA Cup spot last season.

Last weekend's injury-time defeat at home to Aston Villa left David Moyes's men in eighth position, but still within touching distance of European qualification once again.

With striker Ayegbeni Yakubu out for the season with an Achilles injury and Louis Saha sidelined with a hamstring problem, Moyes' men approach the Christmas period experiencing some difficulties.

But captain Phil Neville insists that Everton are now beginning to show signs of making a recovery.

He said: “It's been a funny old season so far. We've had some ups and had some downs and we didn't start the season too well, but we've picked up, and in the last month or so our form is beginning to come back to us.

“Though we haven't been playing that brilliantly, we're still within touching distance of the top and, if we do hit top form, anything can happen.”