Mark Hughes stepped up the speed of Manchester City’s juggernaut last night, making an extraordinary personal appeal to the England captain John Terry to “re-ignite” his career by joining the club for their assault on the Premier League top four.

In ebullient mood, with the purchase of striker Emmanuel Adebayor seemingly very close for a fee near to Arsenal's £25m asking price, and with his £25.5m acquisition Carlos Tevez sitting across the room, Hughes effectively pleaded with Terry to ditch the club he has been with since a 12-year-old and he applied his own footballing life to make his case.

“From my own experience, when you have been with a club a long time, you maybe get to a point when you need a new challenge, when you think a change of scenery would just re-ignite certain things within you,” Hughes said.

“It is not a question of money it is about a different challenge, a different stage in his life and career, and maybe that is why there hasn't been a response because John is seriously thinking in those terms. I went through that process myself and I can understand if that is the way he is thinking. We would like to think we could offer John Terry a different challenge.”

The significance of Hughes making such an utterance is clearly designed to put pressure on Terry to ask for a transfer. City have been extremely reluctant to brief on transfer targets in the past few weeks, for fear of the same hubristic consequences which befell them when the Kaka deal fell apart in January, but the City manager, clearly immaculately briefed on Terry's state of mind, has touched precisely on one of his current sentiments.

The battle to win the defender is by no means won. Chelsea were relieved last night to learn that their captain will be joining his team-mates tomorrow for the club's flight to the United States for the first leg of their 10-day pre-season tour.

But the 28-year-old has still not made up his mind how he will handle the refusal of Roman Abramovich to allow him to speak to Manchester City, following their £280,000-a-week pay offer. City officials, meanwhile, hope to get the new work permit Adebayor will need if he is to move from Arsenal today.

Terry is the player Hughes wants to make into his talisman, though.

Though he and Hughes never played together at Stamford Bridge - the Welshman moved on to Southampton a few months before Terry's debut in a League Cup tie in October 1998 - the Chelsea skipper would have seen Hughes as a major figure in the club's firmament for the last three years of his progression through the junior ranks.

The feelings were mutual, Hughes suggested. “I've had fantastic respect for John Terry, ever since I saw him at Chelsea when I played there myself,” he said.

“He is a great player, an outstanding captain and an outstanding person. If the opportunity presents itself to bring a player of his calibre to the club we will do our utmost to bring that about.”