Don't get me wrong, I've got nothing against Man City. They've been a good little club over the years, (although relegating Sunderland on the final day of the 90/91 season might still rankle a little with some of the leading lights behind Open Goal), but it's unfathomable to me why Hughes would depart Ewood Park in order to slide across Lancashire.

At Blackburn he has polished what appeared a very hard-baked turd, turning Rovers into a genuinely well-respected, tough, resilient outfit. Success in Europe seems to edge closer every year, and even on a purely Premier League level, they've finished ahead of City for six of the last seven seasons.

True, he'd have a transfer kitty of interesting morals under Shinawatra, but Hughes doesn't strike me as someone who'd want to splash £20million on a player, particularly when he still has Danny Mills bumming around.

But more than all of this, the man is a Red legend. To all of the United haters who sit in the away section at Old Trafford and holler: "Where were you were you were *&+£?". Well, Hughes was there, playing centre-forward!

Come on Sparky, let's get back on the wagon mate.

The other way of looking at this, I suppose, if that he does take the City job, it will probably mean he has turned down an offer to attend the mad hatter's tea party at Stamford Bridge, so there's an argument to say he must have something upstairs
after all.

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