Birmingham boss Alex McLeish has been warned to spend the club’s new found wealth wisely by moneybags Manchester City manager Mark Hughes ahead of the teams’ meeting.

Promoted Blues are set for a transfer assault in January to aid their bid to stay in the Premier League armed with a £30million transfer kitty, supplied by new owner Carson Yeung after his takeover earlier this month.

Manchester City themselves have been in such a position as recently as August 2008, when the Sheikh Mansour-backed Abu Dhabi United Group bought the club and immediately supplied the manager with £32.5million to break the British transfer record and capture Robinho from Real Madrid.

Since then, well over £100million has been poured into the club for new players, with the promise of more to come.

Hughes has been the man spending the money, but warns his opposite number at St Andrew’s that with great financial power comes great responsibility.

He said: “My advice to anyone in Alex’s position, is to spend the money wisely.

“We have tried to do that, to increase the quality of the squad that we have and get the right players in here. We have tried to improve the standard and the depth of the squad.

“It depends on how much finance the new owners will make available for McLeish.

“When Sheikh Mansour took over here, everyone thought that there was an endless amount of money, which is not quite the case. We are working to a budget, maybe a little bit bigger than most, but we are working to a budget.”

The two managers pit their wits against each other in a Sky-televised game on Sunday (4pm).