I thought Hughes was alright (despite being a rag). He had a better record than Sven and was far, far more entertaining to watch than Pearce (God only knows how he ended up in that roll). Got us to our first semi final since '81. If the takeover hadn't happened, I think he would have been the right man for the job.
Clearly, in hindsight, bringing in Mancini was the correct move, though. We went from having a decent manager that could make midtable teams overperform, to an elite, world class manager who could take us to the next level.