Despite being by far the world's richest football club, Manchester City have managed to do what they do best, and again make things hard for themselves.
City's problems lie much deeper than just who they can spend £50m plus on in the forthcoming transfer window, or whether they will be playing Champions League football next season, but more the fact that just when they seemed to have found something that vaguely resembled stability at the club in Mark Hughes, he was shown the door.
The reason behind the recent problems at the club? Hughes? Robinho? More money than sense? No, the main reason behind the circus that is Manchester City is none other than its own bumbling ring-leader, Garry Cook.
The man trusted with the everyday running of the football club seems to have been intent on putting himself in the spotlight since his arrival at the club in 2008.
For the record, this is the same man who recently was booed by his own fans after welcoming Uwe Rosler into the Manchester UNITED Hall of Fame... Shall I go on?
As the richest club in the world, Manchester City have every right to expect fame, fortune and most importantly of all, success.
However, this is not something which would take place overnight. And after going through various managers over the last few years, City seemed like they may have finally found the stability they craved in Mark Hughes.
Granted, they may not have been winning as many games as they would have liked this season, however they have only as far lost 2 games this season in the Premiership, 3 less than their Manchester rivals.
But with Garry Cook at the helm, he would never let potential success get in the way of making a name for himself. Since arriving from Nike in 2008, the man has been content on putting his name in the spotlight, with the only obvious reason, being that he can soak up all the plaudits when something finally does go right.
However, as the old saying goes, 'With great power, comes great responsibility.' Something he has yet to come to terms with. After failing to land Kaka as promised last January, Cook was quick to blame anybody else but himself.
However, more amazingly for the man can normally be seen hugging his latest signings, or paying thousands of pounds on advertising campaigns to try to wind up Man Utd fans, was his final treatment of Mark Hughes.
It is still unclear as to whether Hughes had learned his fate before his final game, a 4-3 victory over Sunderland, but one thing that is clear is that Cook was not the one who was man enough to lay the cards on the table.
Later that night, City announced that Roberto Mancini would take over from Hughes, meaning a press conference, and for Cook, a new opportunity to take centre stage, and that he would do on this occassion.
Cook announced at the unveiling that Mancini had not been contacted until after the 3-0 loss against Tottenham just days before, a notion which Mancini later contradicted, stating that he had spoken with City executives two and a half weeks before.
Since then, Cook has received large amounts of criticism for the treatment of Mark Hughes, so much so that he tried to take pressure off himself, first by attempting to ban certain questions from the press conference, and next, by banning the media from City's Carrington training ground.
The appointment of Mancini brings about question marks in itself. Does he posess the managerial quality City are looking for? Will he be able to improve on Mark Hughes' Eastlands tenure? Or was Cook just intent on bringing in a well known, European name?
I would suggest the latter.
Cook has later admitted that the club were looking for potential successors to Hughes in the summer, with many big European names thrown into the mix as potential replacements, including the fan's number one choice, Jose Mourinho.
Instead, Cook could not wait until the summer to put his name in the spotlight again, and appoint another big name at the club.
The club moved to appoint Mancini, who tasted success in Serie A with Inter, clinching three consecutive Scudetto titles.
However, this may not be as attractive as it may seem for City fans. Not only was he gifted a team that was clearly stronger than the other teams in the league, but he was given one title due to the Italian match fixing scandal, after Juventus were stripped, and another title was made much easier given the fact that Juve had been relegated and other teams docked points for their involvement.
It remains to be seen whether Cook's latest signing will be a success or not, but one thing that is for certain is that Hughes' tenure came to an unfair and abrupt end, and while Cook is given the power to have control at Eastlands, Manchester City Football Club will be in danger.
The bottom line: The wrong man was shown the door at Man City.
