Manchester City land Hughes by coughing up 4.6m to Blackburn

City owner Thaksin Shinawatra welcomed Hughes to City, subject to personal terms being agreed at a dinner with senior board members in London last night when a four-year deal was expected to be finalised.

Rover and out: Mark Hughes is bound for City

"He's an outstanding manager who has achieved many things with Blackburn," Thaksin told Sportsmail last night. "Mark was always the first choice of our new executive chairman, Garry Cook. Together they will make a great team. They will both prove to be excellent acquisitions, I'm sure.

"These are exciting times for Manchester City and I hope the supporters can understand that I share their goals.

"That sometimes means making ruthless decisions. Now we can go forward to a new era, with a new management structure and great hope and ambition."

City, who formally ended Sven Goran Eriksson's oneyear reign on Monday, had hoped to prise away Hughes and his backroom staff for £1.5m but they were stunned when Blackburn officials initially asked for a figure close to £7m.

With Chelsea lingering on the fringes and Hughes making little secret of hearing what the London club may have to offer, a day of tense negotiations between lawyers representing Blackburn and City's Pairoj Piempongsant, the senior advisor to Thaksin, and transfer negotiator Kia Joorabchian, resulted in a deal being thrashed out.

Shinawatra was last night expecting to speak to Hughes by telephone to welcome him to the club and one aide said: "The owner is very relieved and very excited.

"He now believes he has the right team in place off the field and wants to give them the right players on the field. These are good times for Manchester City."

Contracts were being thrashed out for Hughes, No 2 Mark Bowen and goalkeeping coaches Eddie Niedzwiecki and Kevin Hitchcock.

The only member of the Hughes backroom team not certain to move is youth coach Glynn Hodges.

The former Wales boss is expected to be paid in the region of £3m a year - £500,000 more than the out-going Eriksson.

Transfer targets were due to be discussed at last night's London meeting, also attended by City's new chairman Cook, with Blackburn and England star David Bentley at the top of Hughes' wanted list.

Thaksin will endorse a spending spree that he hopes will include Barcelona's Brazil superstar, Ronaldinho.

Piempongsant and other City officials will fly to Brazil at the weekend for talks at the player's family home and they hope that visit will result in his sensational signing from Barcelona.

They plan to team him up with £20m Brazilian striker Jo. City are in action early this season because of their Fair Play qualification for the UEFA Cup and Thaksin said: "There is no time to lose."

Jo's signing - for a club record fee - will be formally announced when City unveil Hughes at a press conference which is likely to take place tomorrow.

There is a sense of resignation at Blackburn over Hughes' decision to leave and left back Stephen Warnock has already indicated that he may move on because of the manager's imminent departure.

Warnock said: "I signed a new contract under the impression that Mark is going to be our manager. I'm happy to be at the club because I'm enjoying playing for the manager.

"It's not that I don't enjoy the club itself, but he was the reason I came. I wanted to play for him.

"I respected him as a player and I respect what he's doing as a manager.

"Fingers crossed he'll stay, but obviously if he's given permission to speak to another club then you just never know what can happen."

Former Bolton and Newcastle manager Sam Allardyce is known to be interested in the job at Blackburn but Paul Ince, who steered MK Dons to promotion to League One, is also thought to be a strong contender.