The training ground at Manchester City is not usually open to outsiders, but I have been allowed to eavesdrop on a conversation between Mark Hughes, the manager, and Mark Bowen, his assistant. City have become the richest club in the world and that means extra pressure and scrutiny. Despite losing at home to Liverpool and Chelsea, City have made a promising start to the season and have qualified for the group phase of the Uefa Cup. Hughes has a reputation for being distant, but he opened up when talking to Bowen about the club’s new owners from Abu Dhabi, his style of management and City’s new Brazilian players.

Mark Bowen People think you are distant and quiet.

Mark Hughes It’s a consequence of the job I do. I’m not as accessible as you because of the demands on my time. I’m doing other things, so players don’t have that access to me anyway. That’s not artificially created, but on the field of play I think it’s important that you have that distance. You can’t have friendships with players, you need respect and trust. I think I get that trust by making sure the coaches and the people I have working with them are top quality.

MB A club couldn’t work properly without someone having the overview vision, though.

MH I’m in charge of the football part of this business. There have been lots of changes and there is going to be more in the future, but the one constant that will always be in place is the manager. I will make decisions and the club will act accordingly - that’s how it should be. It has to be a clear direction to where we are going. That obviously will come from me and the input from my coaches only.

MB The team we have here works exceptionally well.

MH You are like a buffer for me. You recognise things that I need to be made aware of but don’t want to be bogged down with, fielding calls or whatever. Everybody knows I am not a lover of the phone, but it’s part and parcel of the job.

MB The enthralling thing is that the staff is presented every day with new challenges. Having a few Brazilian internationals is a fascinating one.

MH They have a love of the game and love playing, so it is not hard to prepare them for, say, a cold evening in our stadium for a Uefa Cup game. At the moment everything is positive and there is a real buzz around the place. You notice it, I notice it.

MB On occasions, irrespective of whom you are playing, it’s hard to get players going.

MH But that’s why you have a half-time team talk, the opportunity to reaffirm what we are supposed to do from the first half, so they just need reminding now and again.

MB And once you remind them, more often than not you get a change.

MH It’s possibly an old-school mentality to say that he is a Brazilian, just send him on the field and go and play.

MB You just can’t do that.

MH You have to let them know what their role is in the team in any particular game, you have to try and stimulate their minds.

MB And anyway, Brazilians are some of the best-prepared players and managers in the world.

MH Remember when we were with the Welsh national team and, although we weren’t supposed to, we watched the training of the Brazilian team the night before the game? They had all flown in from all over the world and they didn’t do a great deal – they jogged for about 20 minutes and then were put in their team shape and the ball was thrown in. And then you saw the coach, Vanderlei Luxemburgo, moving everyone around, making slight adjustments – a yard here, a yard there. “Rivaldo, you are not quite right, you need to be two metres this way.” He was frog-marching Rivaldo.

MB Yes, and then he would blow his whistle and off they go; they will try things again and again.

MH To be honest, it is true that there are some days when it’s a bit bleak and it’s blowing a gale in this open training ground and, well, it is not easy with people that are not used to that sort of weather. It doesn’t change the message you are trying to get across for that morning’s training. What it does possibly change is the movement of the group. You have to keep them moving, keep them warm and make sure that we construct a session so players aren’t hanging round. Our job is basically to prepare things for players to exploit their talent and also to make them aware of what they are going to face. If they are not able to understand and combat that, they will struggle to have an impact. That is what tactics are about.

MB And now we are lucky we have an even bigger pool to choose from.

MH This club is going to change a lot, starting by the look of it. We are having a major refurbishing in the training ground, a new gym that will be a significant amount of money. The new owners want information, they want to be told what is needed and then they will give you the resources to do it. You put the arguments forward and they will back you very quickly – you don’t have to wait for decisions or committees or board-rooms. They just make decisions and the switch is flicked.

MB You could have all the money in the world and the best gyms, but to have a title-contender team you have to cultivate a winning mentality.

MH The best players will always help you with that. It is also important to have empathy for the club as well. I think we have a real chance to cultivate that here because we have young players who come right through the ranks. We are trying to get our levels up to the level we had at our previous club, and if we do that, tie in with the technical ability of the squad, there is no reason not to think that we are going to reach the ambitious targets set by the new owners and us. I can guarantee everybody that a footballer that plays for us will have all the necessary tools to do the job.

Behind the scenes with ‘the new Ferguson and Queiroz’

The coaching and managerial set-up at Manchester City is the antithesis of the one that has brought Newcastle United to their knees – organised, meticulous and demanding.

Sheikh Mansour, City’s new multibillionaire owner, was immediately struck by the professionalism of Mark Hughes and his back-room team and, provided that he gives them time to implement their bold plans, the club should be in good hands.

Hughes forged a reputation as a forward-thinking disciplinarian, a manager receptive to new ideas and fiercely protective of his players, during impressive tenures with Wales and Blackburn Rovers. Those qualities are being cultivated at City, but his success owes much to the team around him.

The influence of Mark Bowen, Hughes’s assistant, cannot be underplayed. Nor can the role played by Eddie Niedzwiecki, the first-team coach, Kevin Hitchcock, the goalkeeping coach, and Glyn Hodges, the reserve-team manager.

Bowen is more than a buffer between Hughes and the players. A former Wales teammate of the manager, he is an innovative coach, springboard for ideas, confidant and widely respected motivator in his own right. It has been suggested that Bowen plays a similar role to the one Carlos Queiroz had at Manchester United before Sir Alex Ferguson’s No 2 left to coach Portugal in the summer and the comparison does not flatter him. Bowen prefers to let Hughes take the credit, however, and paints a picture of a man heavily influenced by Ferguson, his former manager at Old Trafford.

“He wants to try and cover ever single base,” Bowen said. “So if we lose a game and he comes in the dressing-room and starts throwing the odd teacup, he doesn’t have one player who can put his hand up and say, ‘It’s not my fault we lost because I didn’t know this or we didn’t do that.’ It’s a simple philosophy but one that requires hard work to maintain.”

Words by James Ducker.

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