It's about building for the future. Mancini brought some old 'uns and some young 'uns together at inter, and created a dominant team. He took a joke club, a perpetually overspending, underachieving bunch of egos, and made it into the dominant force in Italy.
We couldn't go on buying exclusively premiership proven players because there aren't enough good ones on the market. Hughes gave us some good players, couple of superb buys, no real stinkers, but no young talent that we could mould and develop into the world class solutions you just can't buy. Overall the squad is poorly matched, just look at the centre backs. They are what was available to him.
Mancini will look further afield, be more adventurous, and attract more good players than hughes ever could. His Inter team was so well matched that Mourinho reverted to Mancini's line up repeatedly despite signing his own players.
Hughes' main success came from players he knew like Bellamy, bringing Bentley and RSC back from the dead, and giving a chance to the Samba's of this world.
Mancini brought the likes of Maicon and Ibrahimovic to the peak of their careers as world class players. I think that someone like that might have a real shot at getting the best out of players like Adebayor and Robinho, and I'm salivating over what he has in mind for the next two transfer windows.
It will be fantastic to be signing young players again, to be looking beyond getting a couple of seasons out of the Matthew Upson's of this world (no disrespect), to the prospect of seeing some of the very best emerging talent out there reach their potential at our club.