PREMIER LEAGUE: Mark Hughes should not have alligned himself with Manchester City if he wanted to steer clear of downright craziness

IT’S VERY easy to laugh at Manchester City, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try. Football needs its jokers – more than ever in this po-faced age – and City have always been one of the game’s most beloved jesters. They are the roly-poly buffoon to Manchester United’s straight man, the office idiot who, while never in danger of winning a promotion, is always the one everyone wants to get in the Secret Santa.

Alex Ferguson, whose anthology of one-liners would surely make terrific stocking-filler, never tires of suggesting that City’s Eastlands home should be re-named “The Temple of Doom” but this is actually rather kind.

Indiana Jones, after all, is the hero who never fails to get the girl, save the treasure or kill the bad guy. If City embarked on a similar escapade – Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Sky Blue Numbskulls, perhaps – the script would be rather different: the Holy Grail would be dropped into a ravine, the girl would end up in bed with Indy's best mate, and Dr Jones would probably lose an arm trying to retrieve his battered trilby from beneath a falling boulder.

Remember, this is a club which bodged a final-day survival scrap in 1996 so badly they were trying to kill time near one of Maine Road’s corner-flags when they still needed another goal to stay up; a club which, having been bestowed with a glittering new arena by the local council, decided to name one of the stands after Colin Bell – hence burdening themselves with a “Bell End”.

The Blue Moonies, as they are rather ungraciously referred to by their red neighbours, used to wear their jokey reputation as a badge of honour, all of which makes their new-found status as the world’s wealthiest club, chasing players like Kaka, all the more difficult to stomach. It is an inversion of the world’s natural order, like Malvolio winning the heart of Viola or Mr Bean being elected President.

Thankfully, and predictably, City are making a complete pig’s ear of their new-found good fortune. On the field, they have been humiliated by the likes of Nottingham Forest in the FA Cup and are still up to their necks in the relegation quicksands despite Saturday’s hugely fortuitous win over Wigan.

But it’s off it that matters have taken a truly ludicrous turn. Transfer signings appear to be divided into two roughly equal camps: the Mark Hughes targets, who tend to be British, pragmatic and rather dull and those of the club’s Abu Dhabi-based owners, which seem to be selected with all the discretion and deliberation of a hyperactive toddler let loose in Woolworths’ closing down pic‘n’mix sale. Suffice to say, Eastlands is not the place to be for fans of joined-up thinking.

You have to sympathise with Hughes. Witnessing him discuss the possibility of signing Kaka last week was like watching a garage mechanic lay out his plans for fixing a NASA space station: the lips were moving and the words were flowing, but you still couldn’t shake the impression that here was a man who would much rather be tending to a clapped-out Cortina or, in his case, Blackburn Rovers.

Then again, perhaps Hughes should have anticipated such a madcap scenario before he signed his contract. You don’t buy a ticket for a Sean Penn film and then complain that it’s too earnest: similarly, Hughes should not have aligned himself with Manchester City if he wanted to steer clear of downright craziness. It comes with the territory.

And that, in its own way, is rather reassuring. There is much justified gnashing of teeth over how football has lost its soul in the Premier League era, but the chaos at The Temple of Doom suggests that City’s defining characteristic – their sheer loopiness – has not been diluted by being taken over by businessmen with more money than sense.

It’s a principle that holds true throughout the league. Newcastle, the Big Top of the top flight, have retained their predilection for childish clumsiness despite, or perhaps because of, Mike Ashley’s efforts to impose a very grown-up continental management structure at St James’ Park.

Similarly, Tottenham Hotspur remain stuck on football’s Boulevard of Broken Dreams, despite Daniel Levy’s stated intention to fast-track them back to the glory, glory days.

Football’s new breed of owner is learning the hard way that it takes more than fat wad of cash to transform a club’s culture. Forget Kaka: for the rest of us, Manchester City will always be Coco. And, when everything else in the modern game seems to be up for sale, that is surely something to celebrate.

“Thankfully, and predictably, City are making a complete pig’s ear of their new-found good fortune. On the field, they have been humiliated by the likes of Nottingham Forest in the FA Cup and are still up to their necks in the relegation quicksands despite Saturday’s hugely fortuitous win over Wigan