Just wait for January, says Hughes

The whiteboard in Mark Hughes' office looks like the possession of a fantasy league manager. Among the neatly typed stickers which adorn it, listing the players with whom Hughes thought he would be entering the season, are last-minute names scribbled in blue marker-pen: "Wright-Phillips", "Robinho". Hughes knows the events of the past four days have bordered on the ridiculous and is in touch with reality enough to see through the sheer madness of all this.

Any thoughts on Pele's assertion that Robinho was misguided in choosing City over Chelsea? "If he understood where we are trying to get maybe when he was a player he'd have thought about joining us as well." Any talk with Sir Alex Ferguson about City's attempt to pinch Dimitar Berbatov from United? "It's the other way around, isn't it?"

The row over Robinho's decision to choose Manchester City over Chelsea continued last night as the Chelsea manager, Luiz Felipe Scolari, accused the player's advisers of being "more interested in the best business deal" by persuading him to become Britain's highest-paid footballer on £160,000 a week at Eastlands. "He's a very good player. I only wish him the best," Scolari said.

Yes, Hughes says, City really did bid for six or seven players on Monday – all at once. David Villa, Mario Gomez, reportedly Ruud van Nistelrooy and Klaas-Jan Huntelaar could also have made it on to the Hughes whiteboard. That is a serious number of strikers. "We didn't just pick names out of the sky and think we'll go for them," Hughes said. "There was speculation surrounding those players up to the close of the window."

Faxed offers flooding out of Abu Dhabi on Monday, while Hughes sought refuge in a charity golf day, made it look like new proprietors Dr Sulaiman Al-Fahim and Abu Dhabi's Al-Nahayan royal family were picking a dream team – though Hughes suggested it was otherwise.

Was he asked by the Arabs for help in drawing up a list? "It was something like that." Hughes adds that it is his "understanding – and it has to be – that I recommend players and they see if they can get them," but there is a sense, in the wry smile as he predicts that, "I'm sure January will be an exciting time for everyone again", that he is prepared to give reign to the owners' desires.

"We were on the last day of the window and they wanted to make a statement," he said of Monday's events. "It was a really important day for them, the first day of Ramadan, and they wanted to come in and make a real impact, not only on the people of Manchester, but on the world itself, and they've certainly done that."

He also accepts that the old autonomy managers enjoyed has gone. "[You have to] understand where the business side overlaps with the football side, understand the owners' point of view," he said.

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