Shifting uncomfortably in one of those waiting room chairs that are seemingly designed to be as uncomfortable as possible, Mark Hughes was a nervous man.

Except for the presence of a silent receptionist, the Manchester City manager was alone in the palatial reception awaiting the call to enter the fat cats office and explain his teams run of seven straight draws.

Glancing up at a clock periodically, nervously twiddling his thumbs and impatiently crossing his legs, uncrossing them and then crossing them back the other way, Hughes was being made to wait what for what felt like an eternity.

Manchester City’s insistence on signing strikers on top of strikers has given me an overwhelming sense of déjà vu and I think I know what it is. It’s the sort of managerial tactics I employ in the transfer market when I’m playing on Championship Manager.

The capture of former United striker Carlos Tevez is the latest addition to a squad that already includes the following international strikers: Valeri Bojinov, Robinho, Felipe Caicedo, Ched Evans, Benjani, Craig Bellamy, Roque Santa Cruz and Jo who has been farmed out to on-loan to Everton for the rest of the season.

Now I’m obviously not a manager and I don’t have the same level of experience in the game as Mark Hughes, but surely he must recognise that he will be unable to accommodate all seven strikers in his starting line-up, unless of course he plays the playground formation of rush-keepers, the fat kid at the back (Richard Dunne) and everyone else plays upfront.

This time last year Gareth Barry was courting a move to Liverpool in pursuit of his dream of playing Champions League football, but this eventually fell through. Still harbouring the same ambitions this time around, he has now elected that the best place to achieve this is with tenth placed Manchester City after a £12 million move on Tuesday.

Having not even qualified for the newly revamped Europa League, City are a long way short of a Champions League side, unless like Robinho he thought he was signing for the other Manchester side.

The incentive of a truck load of cash and further potential investment to lift City into Champions League contention has to be considered, but to leave a side who were fighting for that elusive fourth place finish earlier in the season for a club that struggled into mid-table obscurity and were a full twenty-two points behind the top four in the final standings, is a slap in the face for the ambition of Martin O’Neill’s side.