The back four isn’t stupendous, and De Jong and Barry are probably his two best central midfielders. Ideally, you’d want to play one of those two defensively, with Stephen Ireland, for instance, in front, but City don’t really have a lot of wide midfield players. What they do have is wingers and strikers. Since your centerback pairing isn’t rock-solid, you put two holding midfielders in front of them. Since your ownership (and I definitely believe the ownership drives player purchases) has brought in lots of expensive, big-name strikers, you’re pressured to play them. You can’t have the record-fee guy sitting on the ass end of the bench. Adebayor goes up front, with Robinho to the left in the attacking role he plays for Brazil. Tevez goes on the right and balances out Robinho’s complete indifference to defense. Ireland plays the central creative role.

In theory it should work. But Tevez has no discipline, Adebayor drifts in and out and Robinho hates the team and wants to leave. The back four, poor at the best of times, is being exposed because both flanks are wide open, especially on the left. Too, he’s still got a bunch of highly-priced players on the bench and can’t manage all the egos. He tries to give everyone enough game to satisfy them, but that just leads to bad performances, since his best XI, tactically, is on the bench most of the time.

EF: Well, it’s probably better now that Nicky B is on the shelf for a month or two.

@Whiz: couldn’t agree more. Mourinho is a man you look up to, aspire to, listen to. Sparky pushes the pencil, at least that’s the perception I get.

@Keith: So true! Hughes looks bewildered. Tries to play the “best” XI every week, except no-one will do the heavy lifting.

He then bought Bridge, Bellend, De Jong and Given in the January window.