I wonder if I am just contrary by nature. While the blogs this morning are full of anti Hughes rhetoric I find myself not particularly fussed by the loss to Spurs. It was thoroughly predictable and I don't mean that as some kind of attack on Hughes. Given that the entire left side of City's midfield and defense, Bellamy, Bridge and Lescott was out through injury and suspension and that Spurs are at their most dangerous attacking down their right flank I honestly couldn't see any other outcome regardless of the quality or effort put out by the players.

That the effort was lacking and it formed probably the worst overall performance by a Hughes team is in the grand scheme of things fairly unimportant.

As I noted, I would have played a different team with different tactics but there's no way to know if those would have worked. I was pretty positive that the most "obvious" team that could be put out would fail.

Let's put this in context. Even with a fully fit and available team getting anything from Tottenham would have been a stretch. Spurs are a very good side and it is not reasonable for us to expect the club to win every game. If we saw such results over a month and a corresponding lack of effort then there is a discussion to be had, but big picture it is just one loss.

The news concerning Lescott after the game was that the defender will miss a couple of months. Combine this with Toure leaving for the African Nations' Cup and it is fairly obvious that Hughes will have to buy and very quickly to bring in the necessary reinforcements. I do wonder if we will see him go once more to the Bundesliga where his ability to evaluate talent is quite impressive.

The argument for the Premier League signings was that the players knew the league and would not require the time to adapt. If this thinking remains the case then I would expect Matthew Upson's name to be mentioned prominently. A month ago it looked like a quiet January for City, now it is quite possible that 4 new players will come into the squad. Three defenders and the midfield maestro are required to maintain City's quest for 6th place or higher in the league.

One player who will not be leaving is Joe Hart and I'm glad to see that Mark Hughes has ruled out the possibility of Hart leaving the club. Given the surprising struggles of United's Ben Foster, and I say surprising because I do rate the young keeper, Hart is looking more and more like the long term solution for the England #1 role after the World Cup. And at this point is probably ahead of Foster for the 3rd Goalkeeper spot in the South Africa squad. Shay Given is arguably the best goalkeeper in the Premier League, certainly one of the top three and should be at the club for a number of years. However there is no reason why Hart cannot continue to be loaned out to clubs each year until the time that City need him to step into the top spot.