Hughes furious at 'comfortable' stars as Elano faces axe
The full extent of Mark Hughes' fury with some of the established Manchester City players he considers to have become "too comfortable" was revealed yesterday.
It emerged that Elano was axed from the squad for last Sunday's match against West Bromwich Albion after he had put in a lacklustre training session the day before, on the back of a poor personal display in the side's UEFA Cup defeat in Santander.
Words are understood to have been exchanged between player and manager at the club's Carrington training ground and the sense of division within the ranks of a club in the relegation zone after defeat at the Hawthorns was also underlined by the seemingly bizarre behaviour of the Brazilian's compatriot Jo over the weekend.
After training on Saturday, he phoned in sick and missed the coach to the West Midlands on Sunday but then arrived under his own steam.
Hughes has been disenchanted for several months with Elano who, while the City manager was in Abu Dhabi for his first talks with Sheikh Mansour al Nahyan last month, went public on his frustrations about his lack of starts at City.
The coach at his previous club, Shakhtar Donetsk, is understood to have telephoned City to alert them to Elano's sensitivities to not playing, and that message seems prophetic now.
The current row mirrors one which made him an equally alienated figure in the Ukraine.
To be fair to Hughes, Elano has started 16 League and cup games this season, scoring four times, and after a meeting in the manager's office following the player's previous outburst -- which saw him fined £40,000 -- he was selected for the European games against Paris SG and Racing and the Premier League clash with Everton.
He was poor in all of them and seems to be on the way out of City, with Spanish side Espanyol and Lazio understood to be interested.
Though Hughes appears to be safe to launch the January spending spree Sheikh Mansour is preparing for, the friction behind the scenes reflects the wider problem of how he should manage players who were a part of the Sven-Goran Eriksson regime last season.
Stephen Ireland is the only individual to have responded to the Welshman's new disciplinarian culture, with neither Richard Dunne nor Micah Richards worthy of a place in any Premier League starting line-up on current form.
Darius Vassell is another inherited player who, according to some noises emerging from the club, is disenchanted and Hughes showed from the touch-line at West Bromwich last Sunday just how frustrated he was with the player's consistently poor delivery from the right.
Tel Ben Haim does not appear to be Hughes' answer to City's grave central defensive problems. He found himself marginalised last Sunday, with England U-21 international Nedum Onuoha given the role of understudy to Micah Richards and Dunne.
Hughes' language suggests that he has more faith in his younger players and of Elano on Sunday he said: "(His) performance levels have not been up to scratch so I've left him at home and brought some of the younger lads."
It is difficult to predict whether Elano's seemingly imminent departure from Eastlands will affect Robinho.
The record British signing has described his compatriot as a "brother" and during City's 3-0 win against Arsenal last month pointedly celebrated with him near the City bench, where he was a substitute. (© Independent News Service)
- Ian Herbert
