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Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear... It's all going a bit wrong really, isn't it? Transfer Talk is in sympathetic mood this morning but it's hard to know who to feel more sorry for: Mark Hughes or Arsene Wenger.
FOOTBALL 2008-2009 Atlético Atletico Madrid Sergio Kun Agüero Aguero - 0
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It's a bit of a coin toss to decide which of the pair is the more tragic figure - although perhaps tragic is a little strong when discussing men who draw seven-figure salaries in the midst of a global financial crisis - so we'll look at both, in alphabetical order.
For all the money that City now have thanks to the Mansour millions, the only truly impressive change so far for boss Hughes is that the post-match baths are now filled with vintage champagne instead of Lancastrian tap water.
Okay, Mark Hughes may have brought in Craig Bellamy and Nigel De Jong, but let's be honest: both signings are just utterly, devastatingly, crushingly boring compared to what we're all hoping to see.
And that's because Hughes is now European football's spoilt little rich kid, trying to buy friends wherever he can - and finding, inevitably, that the only friends he'll win that way are people who need the money.
Enter West Ham stage right, with their Icelandic financial implosion and Sheffield United court case issues, and Hamburg, who have cunningly trousered nearly 20 million quid for a player whose contract reportedly stipulated a £2.3m buy-out clause.
The sort of wow-factor players he really needs to keep the buzz going don't play for Hamburg or West Ham, they're not Dutch or Welsh - and now that the City momentum has ground to a halt they certainly won't head to Eastlands.
The latest such player to stick to his guns is Atletico Madrid's frankly awesome Sergio 'Kun' Aguero, who has confirmed that the only circumstances under which he'd join City are if the UN Security Council agree to ban every other football club on the planet.
Hughes is even having trouble getting those 'better-than-nothing' signings off the ground. Even one of the few players who might be happy to move - Newcastle goalkeeper Shay Given - won't be given permission to leave Tyneside unless City up their reasonable-ish-sounding £5m offer by some ungodly degree.
You have to feel sorry for the City boss: he has always struck TT as a decent and genuine man, and the last person on earth who would want to be stuck with the poor little rich boy tag. But them's the breaks - and just to rub salt into those wounds the one uber-signing that he has pulled off in his tenure seems, tragically, as if it might head for a horrific implosion.
