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Mark Hughes last night assured Manchester City supporters that he has no intention of resigning as manager after two months in the job, despite the sense of turmoil that has engulfed the club over the past week.

Hughes has been alarmed by developments at Eastlands, amid concern about the future of Thaksin Shinawatra’s regime, but he remains committed to turning City into a top-four team, even if that goal seems rather more distant than he may first have thought.

“There have been a lot of rumours flying around, but I am not going anywhere and I don’t anticipate going anywhere,” Hughes, who left Blackburn Rovers to succeed Sven-Göran Eriksson as City manager in June, said. “There is a job to do here and I am looking forward to it. There is speculation around the club and that has been prevalent since I joined, but from my own point of view I am very focused on what I am about and what I aim to achieve here — and that means success on the pitch.”

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As well as tomorrow’s Uefa Cup second qualifying round match at home to FC Midtjylland, a priority for Hughes is to sign a centre forward, with Roque Santa Cruz, of Blackburn, the name at the top of his list. Blackburn, though, maintain that the Paraguay forward is not for sale at any price, leaving Hughes to scour Europe in search of a player who can share the goalscoring burden with Jô, who is on Olympic duty with Brazil, Benjani Mwaruwari and Valeri Bojinov.

There remain problems at City, however, with Vedran Corluka and his representatives seemingly intent on forcing through a move to Tottenham Hotspur and, more worrying for the long term, Thaksin, the owner, facing the threat of jail after refusing to attend the start of a corruption trial in Thailand. There are serious doubts about Thaksin’s ability to deliver the vision he laid out when he bought the club 13 months ago, particularly because £800 million of assets remain frozen in Thailand.

Garry Cook, the executive chairman of City, attempted to play down talk of a crisis yesterday, saying that the club’s future is “not in jeopardy” and that it is “business as usual”, but he confirmed that Thaksin was looking to attract outside investment to assist with cash-flow difficulties in the short term, which led John Wardle, the former chairman, to lending the club £2 million last month to ensure that staff could be paid.