SV Hamburg 1-0 Man City: City given food for thought

Mark Hughes insists he is prepared to let his recruitment drive run until the very end of August.

City's narrow defeat to Martin Jol's Hamburg showed that Hughes' squad is far from ready for the start of the Premier League campaign.

Without Olympics bound Brazil star Jo and Benjani, who will miss the start of the season with a thigh injury, Hughes looks particularly short in attack.

Equador youngster Felipe Caicedo, 19, started in attack alongside ex-England man Darius Vassell and Hughes also threw on another kid Ched Evans.

Just under a couple of months into life at Eastlands, Hughes knows re-inforcements are a priority but is prepared to wait until just before the transfer window closes to get the right men.

"It's a good opportunity for some of the younger lads to play in some of these stadiums in front of big crowds against good opposition and that will help their development," he said.

"I understand what options I have and there are still a number of weeks before the start of the Premier League.

"There's a lot of work to do but I was pleased that the lads were able to come on the field and have an impact.

"Ideally you would prefer to get them in early in the pre-season period and that helps them to integrate into the group and allow them to understand how we want to play.

"I've done business right to the last minute of windows in the past so it's not a situation that I'm worried about and good business can still be done at the end of the window."

Jol's Hamburg were far better in the opening period and were worth even more than Jonathan Pitroipa's early opener at the Nordbank Arena.

City's best opening of the first half came when Joris Mathijsen had to head off the line from Vedran Corluka.

Despite the temperature hitting the high 30s, City were much improved after the interval and Caicedo carved out a decent opening for himself only to fail to get a shot away.

Martin Petrov also fired just wide from distance and Vassell forced a great save by keeper Frank Rost from point-blank range.

Rising star Kelvin Etuhu was also impressive after coming off the bench for City.