Hughes unconcerned by looming deadline

Mark Hughes is confident he will have enough time before the transfer window closes to bring in the players he wants to Fulham.

While nearly all his Barclays Premier League rivals have had the whole summer to reinforce their squads for the coming season, Hughes will have less than two weeks to assess where he needs to strengthen before the Barclays Premier League kicks off, and less than two weeks after that before the window slams shut.

The 46-year-old, who was yesterday officially unveiled as Fulham boss after signing a two-year contract last week, admits he had taken charge a few weeks later than he would have liked.

But the former Manchester City and Blackburn boss believes he can recruit the reinforcements he needs before the end of the month.

“Ideally, we would’ve liked to have been in place before the pre-season schedule was undertaken,” said Hughes, who plans to establish Fulham as a permanent fixture in the Barclays Premier League top 10.

“But that wasn’t possible.

“We’ve got two weeks before the start of the season and we’ve still got another two weeks after that of the window to negotiate as well, so there’s still plenty of time.”

Hughes’ priority is signing a striker after none of Fulham’s players managed double figures in terms of goals last season.

But he has all but ruled out raiding City for Craig Bellamy – and possibly Roque Santa Cruz – admitting the former in particular would be out of his new club’s price range.

Bellamy would need to be convinced to take a huge pay cut to move to Fulham.

Hughes revealed yesterday he himself needed to be talked into taking charge at Craven Cottage, despite the club enjoying the two most successful seasons in their history under his predecessor Roy Hodgson.

“The last two years, I thought maybe they’d been punching above their weight and maybe that’s a consequence of the good work that had gone on beforehand,” Hughes said.

“The Premier League is a very expensive league and you do need resources; you need funds to keep energising the team to enable it to continue.

“If you don’t add quality to a club and a group of players then you will stand still and people will overtake you.

“Maybe that was the reassurance that I needed when I had the discussions with Alistair (Mackintosh, chief executive).”

Succeeding Hodgson would appear to be a thankless – arguably impossible - task.

But Hughes believes he can maintain and improve upon the kind of displays which saw the club secure their highest ever top-flight finish two years ago and reach last season’s Europa League final.

Hughes has plenty of energy ready to expend on fighting to keep hold of their best players after returning to management “refreshed” from seven months off after being sacked by Manchester City.

He admitted the unemployed Hughes was beginning to “aggravate” his wife, though he did find time to take up skiing.

Of his experiences on the piste, he joked: “After the third time, I was okay.”

Hughes also defended his spending record at Manchester City, insisting he had no say over the transfer fees paid for players.

He said: “Actually, the amounts paid weren’t really directly influenced by me, I would suggest.

“On some occasions at City, in fairness, players were presented to me which I didn’t really have a direct input in.

“But you get a phone call and somebody says, ’would you like Robinho?’

“As a manager you say, ’well, yeah – I would’.

“But whether or not the situation like that was correct in terms of timing and the development of the club at that stage, that’s open to debate.

“Once the money from the Middle East came in then, all of a sudden, expectation rose very, very quickly and it was difficult to match those expectations short-term because, in all honesty, the playing staff and the infrastructure and the quality of people around the club wasn’t as it should be.”