Manchester City, set up for a good season?

Man City is looking like a lesser version of Real Madrid these days by having no limits to the number of strikers they are adding to their lineup.

Just like Real which added Ronaldo, Kaka and Benzema to their already overcrowded forward line before selling the surplus, Man City is likely to add yet another forward in Adebayor from Arsenal to the new boys Tevez and Roque Santa Cruz. Incidentally, Adebayor plays in the same position as Santa Cruz. How they fit together is a mystery to the bystander and one to be solved by manager Mark Hughes. They paid over 40 million pounds for two similar players.

Lets not forget Man City also has Benjani, Caicedo, Evans, Bellamy, Bojinov and Robinho who play in the same line of attack as the "70 million pound" trio of Tevez, Santa Cruz and Adebayor. How do you squeeze everyone into a balanced footballing first eleven? Maybe the impending sale of Benjani and Evans could help reduce surplus.

Man City is also looking to acquire Chelsea man John Terry , the second club captain Hughes is targeting after Gareth Barry joined from Aston Villa. He is clearly looking for some leadership in the team. And his tactic is to tempt Terry with wads of cash from the oil rich Shiek Mansour.

How does that translate to leadership on the field? Perhaps he needs a larger than life or widely recognized leadership figure in JT to win over his newly acquired motley crew of marquee names and superstars. A lot of egos to stifle there even for one good England captain.

Question to ask is how many of these newly acquired stars really care or know enough about an underachieving team like Man City to give their 100%? Do they even care about the Manchester club's history or how much the local derby really means? Do they realise the club has been a mediocre shadow of what they were when the blue half was the stronger half in Manchester and the envying sentiments of the long suffering fans? And the pressure to outperform or be on par with the Red half which happens to be the best team in Britain, how is that going to play out in the star players' minds or ex Utd player Mark Hughes's mind? Will the pressure build a cohesive unit or break the team spirit when things go awry? Playing for a fat pay cheque does not motivate a club to greatness as a team.

Man City could be worse off than Real Madrid in the aspect of managing star egos, a huge squad and overwhelming expectation from the board. At least Real had some experience before with their Galatico policy(not that they learned from it...). Man City's management had never overseen a squad with so many overpaid stars under one... well... less than world renowned name of a manager. You cannot play everyone in every match and that is a nagging headache for Mark Hughes. As big a player name as Mark Hughes was during his heydays, he is still starting off in baby steps in his managerial career. A few mistakes here and there tactically, a few points lost over the season and you'll expect the players to complain about their lack of contributions to the cause due to a lack of games, case in point the very-eager-to-play Carlos Tevez and the individualistic and egoistical Adebayor.

Sooner or later, player power is likely to prevail and the superstars will overwhelm a lesser man in Hughes and force him into early resignation or face the dreaded sack from the top. And then the cycle pretty much begins itself again with a new manager, probably with a bigger name but faced with the same temptation to rebuild a team brimming with talent but broken in spirit... and sign on too many star players.

I cannot see how Man City can develop itself into top four contenders. They need a homegrown Manchester boy, someone rising from the ranks of their youth teams to lead this new team of superstars, someone in the mould of Gerrard at Liverpool and Terry at Chelsea. Micah Richards looks like a future captain but he is not the finished product yet when it comes to world class football. Perhaps, the over-eagerness of Hughes and the cash of the Shiek to sign a ready made leadership figure in Terry will help ease his team's transition from a band of dispersed superstars into a cohesive unit. If he does succeed, and I wish him all the best... Man City might not crash as badly as I am predicting their season to be.