You have to feel for Mark Hughes. Here City are on a three game winning streak and everything should be focused on the last few games of the season.

Instead the issue of Elano is once more to the fore.

Frankly Hughes is on a hiding to nothing over Elano. The Brazilian is a firm fan favourite, not the least because the excellent start to last year's campaign revolved around the attacking midfielder and to many it was Elano's loss of form from injury that contributed to the poor run in to the end of the season.

It has been incomprehensible to a number of observers that Elano can start for Brazil and not City and so the up tick in City form once the midfield wizard has played regularly seems "obvious."

Elano, proving if nothing that he can play the media almost as well as he can his Premier League opponents drops the classic during the week that he would be open to signing a new contract. Hughes of course has demurred with the comment that Elano still has two years to run on his contract. But what it does is set up Hughes as the fall guy. It has been reported in many outlets that Elano is likely to leave in the summer. Now with the Daily Fail and many other British newspapers most of the time if you see something about City I presume it is inaccurate until proven otherwise. But the rumours of Elano leaving have been persistent.

Say Elano leaves then Hughes is the bad guy who couldn't get a Brazilian starter, who wanted to stay, to fit into his system. That will ensure that a slow start next season is fatal to Hughes with the fan base.

Who would be a Manager...