Mark Hughes, the Manchester City manager, is confident that he will retain the backing of Sheikh Mansour even if results do not pick up in the immediate future because the club's billionaire owner is not prone to making “hysterical” decisions.

City could find themselves bottom of the Barclays Premier League should they lose at home to Hull City today and away to Blackburn Rovers, their fellow strugglers, two days later.

It is an unthinkable scenario for a club that, less than four months ago, were being talked of as potential future title challengers after being bought out by one of the world's richest men, who issued an immediate statement of intent by smashing the British transfer record to sign Robinho, the Brazil forward, for £34.2million from Real Madrid.

City have lost six of their past nine league matches, but Hughes believes they will finish in the top ten this season and is unconcerned about the scrutiny surrounding his future.

“My position has been the same ever since the new owners came in,” he said. “People will question my right to manage Manchester City, but that is something I deal with on a daily basis. It is not something that fazes me at all.”

Asked if it was rare for billionaire owners of football clubs to be as patient as Sheikh Mansour seems prepared to be, Hughes said: “Maybe it is because they understand [the importance of patience] despite how hysterical people seem to be at this moment in time.”

Hughes faced and survived a relegation battle during his first season as manager of Blackburn, before guiding the club into sixth and a place in the Uefa Cup the next campaign, and he expects the turnaround in fortunes at City to be even quicker given the money at his disposal. “It is not as if I have no experience of this [kind of situation],” he said. “I know what it takes [to turn it around]. The difference is that I did not have a great deal of money at Blackburn.”

Although City are 16 points worse off than they were after 18 games under Sven-Göran Eriksson last season, Hughes believes that the team's performance in the second half of 2007-08, when they took only 21 points from their final 20 league matches, was more reflective of the quality of the squad he inherited, with the manager hinting that some players are not up to the challenge.

“Manchester City had a fantastic start to last season but I think everybody in football understood that it was not sustainable,” Hughes said. “What we are trying to do is address the weaknesses and have a stronger finish [than last season]. Things have compromised us - individual errors, injuries but the club is nowhere near where it needs to be in terms of preparation for games and the way they prepared on a daily basis. We are addressing those issues. Some players will embrace that, some won't.”