If he is given the time to see through the job he has started at Manchester City, Mark Hughes hopes to build a team in which the flair of Robinho and others is buttressed by the aggression and workrate for which his Blackburn Rovers teams were renowned.

With or without the resources that City's owners have put at his disposal, he would love to field a team capable of exposing Arsenal as a soft touch this afternoon, but, for now, with the personnel he has available, he has little option but to take them on at their own game.

When he took over at the City of Manchester Stadium in June, Hughes intended to construct his City team along similar lines to those he had followed at Blackburn, with an emphasis on organisation, discipline, fitness and determination. Circumstances dictated otherwise - most notably the uncertainty over the club's ownership until the Abu Dhabi United Group arrived on September 1, bearing Robinho as a welcome gift - and instead, with Vincent Kompany the sole straight man in a midfield that encompasses the creative talents of Robinho, Shaun Wright-Phillips and Stephen Ireland, the City that have emerged for now are a kind of Arsenal Lite, high on flair and expression but low on the more prosaic qualities needed to prosper among the muck and nettles of the Barclays Premier League.

For Hughes, it is a source of frustration, not least as he wonders how different today's match against Arsenal would be if he had his dream City team - perhaps including Lassana Diarra, the Portsmouth and former Arsenal midfield player, who, along with Gianluigi Buffon and Roque Santa Cruz, is a known target for the January transfer window. Diarra would add some welcome steel to the midfield, but for now Hughes knows that the main emphasis must be on outplaying Arsenal, rather than merely outmuscling them, as his Blackburn team at times did successfully.

“Arsène [Wenger, the Arsenal manager] used to criticise us when I was at Blackburn, usually after we had beaten them,” Hughes said with a smile. “Seriously, though, I've got fantastic respect for him and I think he respects what I've done in the past. But this will be a different type of game because we haven't got the personnel who can play a hard, pressing, physical game.”

Hughes and his staff have been disappointed this season by the difficulties they have endured in imposing their demands on the squad that they inherited from Sven-Göran Eriksson. At times he has hinted at a lack of fitness among his players - which, through intensive training, has improved, but not yet enough - along with concern at lapses of discipline on and off the pitch. Yesterday there were headlines claiming that two of his players, Michael Ball and Dietmar Hamann, had refused to leave the substitutes' bench to warm up during the 2-2 draw away to Hull City last Sunday. City officials have denied this.

This is a big week for Hughes, with today's match followed by a trip to Germany to face Schalke in the Uefa Cup on Thursday and then, most critically, the derby match at home to Manchester United a week tomorrow. Hughes preferred to call it “an exciting week” and, for all that some have begun to claim that his days as City manager are numbered, he believes that given sufficient time, he would be able to emulate the success that Wenger has enjoyed.

“Give me nine years and I'm sure I'll do it [what Wenger has done],” Hughes said. “It is dependent on the players and whether you can get the right ones at the right time for the right price. We will need the next transfer window to do that, along with the one next summer and possibly a couple more after that.”