The sacking of Mark Hughes as Manchester City manager comes as little surprise to most people. The timing and manner of it, however, is a different story.

When Sheik Mansour and his Abu Dhabi group took over with all their billions in August 2008, many thought it was only a matter of time before they also brought in their own manager. You always felt that Hughes was only a defeat away from receiving his P45, and anything less than Champions League qualification, quickly followed by a Premiership title would be seen as failure.

Hughes was always walking a tight rope, a sitting duck at the fairground, despite his team suffering just two defeats from 17 EPL games, sitting comfortably in sixth with a game in hand and reaching their first Cup semifinal since 1981. As far as he was concerned, he was on target to reach the goals set by the board at the beginning of the season – a place in the top six or 70 points.

But a statement from City saw the glass as half empty, saying in a brief statement: “A return of two wins in 11 Premier League games is clearly not in line with the targets that were agreed and set.”

With the board giving Hughes almost £200m to spend on the likes of Robinho, Gareth Barry, Roque Santa Cruz, Joleon Lescott, Adebayor and Carlos Tevez in the last 12 months, it seemed to only add to the pressure, not alleviate it.

The Welshman maintains he knew nothing about his departure until after Saturday’s 4-3 victory over Sunderland at the Eastlands, although the newspapers apparently all knew earlier that morning. His successor, Roberto Mancini, was also rumoured to be at the ground while his seat was still warm, and Hughes’ emotional wave to the crowd after the game seemed anything but a ‘thanks for the support today.’

It was reminiscent of the scenes at White Hart Lane in October 2007 when all 36,000 at the Tottenham ground knew Martin Jol was being sacked while the game was being played. The Spurs manager was ruthlessly given the boot despite two successive fifth placed finishes, as the board poached Juande Ramos from Seville.

It is a lesson Manchester City’s board would have done well to heed. As Spurs satisfied themselves with the belief that Jol could not take the club to the promised land of Champions League qualification, they paid handsome compensation to Seville for the services of Ramos, only to find themselves rooted to the bottom of the table 12 months later with a manager whose only understanding of English football was to remove ketchup from the dinner table.

Leeds, Charlton, Southampton, Nottingham Forest, West Ham, Newcastle and Middlesborough could also tell similar woes of getting ideas above their station.

Mancini has relatively little experience of management – even if he has been successful with brief spells at Fiorentina and Inter Milan – and only played for a limited period in England with Leicester City shortly before bringing his playing career to an end in 2001.

Getting City to break into the top four is a massive task for any manager, and it will be interesting to see just when (or if) the Abu Dhabi owners realise their best chance of doing that has just been shown the door. Many players, such as Craig Bellamy, Robinho and Santa Cruz may soon follow.