Hughes is a victim of being employed by a previous regime. Why should the Sheikh give him time to prove he's not up to the job if that's what he thinks of him? It's his massive investment which is at risk. It's his money that would be used to buy new players. If he doesn't think the manager is good enough then he is more than entitled to bring his own man in.

I don't think Mancini was the right guy to bring in. I still think City need somebody to come in and control the ego's, build the foundations then a coach like Mancini would be better to bring in. I don't think City will be able to get straight to the next level, it does take time and with the strength of other sides in the league, it'll be very hard to jump straight into the top 4. A manager like Hiddink, Capello or Mourinho, somebody who will tighten up the defence, sort out the attitude and get them playing for eachother. I think I made this point in the summer. I think Real Madrid are in a similar position, too, I can see them getting Mourinho next year.

It's a bit harsh to compare Mancini's record with Hughes. While he won a couple of cups before taking the Inter job, he essentially managed the equivalent of a Man U or Chelsea while his major rivals were imploding due to the match-fixing scandals and having titles taken off them and handed to Inter and points deductions.

Hughes hasn't managed an equivalent club. Mancini might well be better than Hughes but I don't see it as the major jump the City Board might be expecting.

Good to see the myth about citys owners being your normal football club owners and not wanting instant success being blown apart by yesterdays events. Oh and thanks for taking all the media attention away from Utd's abysmal performance at Fulham as well.

On the flip side, it's nice to see they do want to sit back and watch hism squander another £100 million as he would surely have done. The evidence was there for all bar the most pig-headed that he just didn't have what it takes to take us to the next level. It's not instant success we want but some sign that we are moving in the right direction at a decent pace. There was little sign of this for me. If we'd carried on progressing at this rate, then we would be achieving our goals in about 2050. Only the complete and utter ineptitude of Liverpool has saved us from being as far away from the top four as what we were under Sven, just two years ago, before Hughes spent £250 million.

The media will always have it in for us due to the way we are trying to build a team. They don't like it, fans of other clubs don't like but we'll get used to it. I don't think United fans lose much sleep about nobody liking them.

Fourth spot has never been so there for the taking and our shambolic defence over the last few games have cost us dear. A lot of people forget that in those ten games, when we won one, decent sides would have expected to win eight or nine of them. It was the easiest run of fixtures we could possibly have hoped to have been given.

I just wonder, one day, whether Hughes will look back and see Kolo Toure as being largely responsible for his downfall? He bestowed the title of captain upon him and he has let him down in every area including leadership, command of his defence and not least his comical defending.

Couple that with the signing of Lescott and the transformation of what has been one of our best ever defences (in a shit team too) to one of our worst, for the large sums spent and you probably have the key to his downfall.

In my book, the sale of Dunne and the pig-headed insistance on keeping the partnership of Toure and Lescott together, to justify his expenditure, has certainly been the major factor.

However, the strange substitutions, the inability to motivate the big guns such as Robinho and Adebayor and the tactical naivety have all played their part.

Stability is wonderful but you need the right man. The owners clearly saw that Hughes was not going to be the man to take us into the big time. As for Mancini, well, that's another story and I will reserve judgement for a later date.

I think a lot of City fans have spent so long in the doldrums that they see anything in the top half and a few cup wins against mediocre sides as the best thing that's ever happened and all is well. We've never had this kind of money before and neither has anyone else.

The past has gone and it is not against what happened to us in the past that we should be measuring ourselves against. It's other clubs of similar stature. The fact is Villa and Spurs look much better 'teams' and have spent only a fraction of the money, despite starting from a reasonably level playing field with us.

I dont really buy the "not the new owner's man" argument. If that were the case the Sheikh would have sacked him at the end of last season. He had the justification - City's failure to get close to even a Europa cup spot. He was happy enough to trust MH with this summer's close season spending spree.

The home draws against Fulham, Hull & Burnley must have destroyed the owner's confidence in the manager. The comedy defending seen in those games probably made the Sheikh wonder what he'd got for his money. Since then MH was surviving on a match to match basis, Spurs being the final straw.

MotD Live - Mark Bright has definitely had a bet on the amount of bookings in today's game. He's willing the ref to book the players for innocuous incidents.

United were awful yesterday. That's the title over now, unless the unthinkable happens and West Ham get a win today, even then can't see us getting near them. It's embarrassing just how much we miss Giggs.

We need to buy a decent midfielder in January to give us any chance of keeping up with Chelsea. A new centre back won't be a bad idea either because Ferdinand is going like Ledley King.

You cant seriously think Man Utd are out of the title race Your starting to sound like Fergie

Good post. Didn't the owners give Hughes more money than originally planned? Maybe thats why they have given him the bullet? As because they accelerated the spending then maybe they expected to see the results quicker as well. Will be interesting to see if Mancini can do any better. I reckon city only appointed him because he has got 'Manc' in his surname?