The Nick Townsend column: Middle Eastlands is as much a joke as Kev's kingdom

Like veteran stand-ups on the club circuit, Manchester City and Newcastle United have long had the capacity to make us smile. Always prepared to accept the occasional heckling if they got above themselves and suggested they might become serious players and threaten the elite, for years they have been interchangeable as clubs whose intensity of support has been in inverse proportion to their achievements.

They have so much in common. City have employed 12 managers in 20 years, and five since the start of the new millennium. They include Kevin Keegan. Newcastle have had 11 managers in 20 years. They include Kevin Keegan. Twice.

That's King Kev, patron saint of dreamers, and a man whose destiny is to be on the cusp: of messianic feats, where the fans are concerned; and of imminent walk-out, in the eyes of the rest of us. No one outside the Toon Army is remotely surprised that the Magpies are currently seeking their 12th manager in two decades.

Related articles

• Crisis on Tyneside: Newcastle rubbish Keegan's claims
• Man City's oil-rich buyer gets a wary welcome
• Paul Vallely: The golden age of football is always some other time
• Search the news archive for more stories

The respective managerial fall-out rate at Newcastle and City accentuates the fact that both clubs have been lacking real stability for years. Both have vociferous, obsessive followers who believe they deserve better. Despite not glimpsing an honour for years – City's last were a European Cup-Winners' Cup and League Cup in 1970, Newcastle's the Anglo-Italian Cup of 1973 – they possess an almost evangelical faith that a gushing well of achievement lies just beyond the next sand ridge. It never does. It is always a mirage.

Until, that is, in this most bizarre of all weeks, in which City have a new owner who has replaced Thaksin Shinawatra, the former prime minister of Thailand whose assets are frozen in his homeland, and has brought, we are told, untold riches to the club with the solemn promise to the faithful that "this is real, not a dream".

Overnight the Light Blues believe they can not only emulate but improve upon the successes of the Dark Blues down south, who have won two titles under the ownership of Roman Abramovich and came to within John Terry's penalty miss of being European champions. Never mind that chic west London is a more welcome residence than most to foreign players, and that Chelsea had already claimed some of the minor prizes, had participated in the Champions' League and looked primed to claim major honours before Abramovich discovered a new hobby. It is all very well for Dr Sulaiman Al Fahim, who fronts the Abu Dhabi United Group, to promise to create a club who are potentially major players in a Big Five. Right now, City are as far away as ever.

Whether this is desirable for the game or not is debatable. City's new money will inflate prices, make the link between the players and supporters ever more tenuous, and almost certainly create a greater abyss between the haves and have-nots. No wonder the Everton chairman, impresario Bill Kenwright, whose passion for his club is simply not matched by the resources to compete in this theatre of sporting conflict, has raised the white flag. He will readily offload his shares.

Such observations will not greatly trouble Al Fahim, who makes no pretence of being here for the greater good of English football. In fairness, he does not pretend that his heart, or that of ADUG, is in the club. Of more concern is to "reinforce Abu Dhabi's position as a capital of both sport and economic development". The target could just as easily have been Arsenal, Liverpool or Newcastle. And, speaking of the last-named, no doubt owner Mike Ashley would have seized any offer gratefully.

All that ingratiating himself with fans and quaffing (low alcohol) beer was getting a bit tiresome, anyway. Now he seeks another manager for whatwas already regarded as the impossible job, but has become even more problematic under his stewardship.

Running a Premier League football club requires a particular kind of management and hierarchy, as Al Fahim will swiftly learn. Half a billion pounds of transfer funds may generate awe; half-baked declarations of intent involving other clubs' contracted players merely invoke suspicion and contempt.

Buying and selling world-class players is not like shifting barrels of oil. Players who are already on mind-blowing salaries are not that easily seduced. Players are impressed by a club's stature, history, manager and likelihood of winning medals.

Ah, but City secured Robinho, most of Blue Manchester will scream. They have acquired a player for the kind of salary and transfer fee that even Chelsea baulked at. That is true, up to a point, although on closer inspection they have signed a player desperate to depart Real Madrid, an individual who entranced the world, let alone Real, when he danced on to the stage at Cadiz in August 2005, but who, three years on, has palpably failed to fulfil expectations. They have won a player whose move to City meant that he "needs counselling", suggested his compatriot Pele. They bought him, most significantly, when the club's manager, Mark Hughes was playing golf.

Hughes now looks on, like a kid before Christmas, attempting to look pleased at the gifts his parents have placed on his present list. Privately, you suspect, he harbours deep concern at Al Fahim's outpourings. Not because Hughes lacks the acumen to work with the best, but because he is aware that there is a world of difference between the new owners' wish-list and actually acquiring any of those illustrious names, which include David Villa, Fernando Torres and Cesc Fabregas (note, though, there is not a defender in sight), always assuming that they fit into his plans.

But how much control will he actually have over the comings and goings? He had little involvement in the summer chase for Ronaldinho's signature, and the £19 million signing of Jo was already being completed. When Al Fahim declared that "the coach will choose the players and we, as investors, will assess his choices, their abilities and their financial costs", it was scarcely what you would call reassuring.

Al Fahim proposes that City will be a Top Four club this season. But if Manchester City are not, and fail to qualify for the Champions' League, what then? It will require more than the brandishing of a sheikh's purse to seduce the other names they covet. For all the excitement generated on Monday over City's attempt to intrude on United's procurement of Dimitar Berbatov, there was never any chance the striker would be swayed by what was on offer at Eastlands.

Hughes, as a former Manchester United man, is only too aware that success evolves over years, not months. He will have observed what happened to Chelsea when Abramovich apparently began taking too close an interest in transfer dealings. The most successful clubs, at least in England, are manager-led and board-supported, as Sir Alex Ferguson and Arsène Wenger can attest. Once the board begin to have their own agenda on team-building or, as in certain cases, another layer of management is introduced, continental-style, with directors of football, it provokes all manner of internal strife, culminating in sackings and resignations, as we witnessed last week with Alan Curbishley's departure from West Ham and the protracted soap opera of Keegan's resignation at Newcastle.

It is a recurring theme. Keegan must have sensed what the ending would be the moment Dennis Wise became part of the St James' Park hierarchy. Frankly, Keegan is well rid of the expectations that – given his time out of the game, the level of resources and the management structure – he could never hope to meet.

It could be that today he looks on enviously as the Blue Mooners he once managed declare themselves ready to give their Premier League rivals, not least those clad in Mancunian Red, a bloody nose, leaving Newcastle where they always tend to be, red-faced and red-nosed, providing the rest of football with comic relief.

But you suspect not. Keegan is well out of it. He has seen at first hand the direction club ownership is taking, and does not care for it. He will be aware that Hughes' own trial of strength is only just beginning.