Mark Hughes has confirmed he is likely to drop Robinho from Manchester City's visit to Arsenal on Saturday as he seeks to find a remedy for the club's dismal away form. Hughes believes Robinho is suffering from fatigue as he comes to the end of his first season in English football.

"He's never knocked on the door and said, 'I'm tired', but there have been times when you look at him and there has maybe been a bit of flatness in his play," Hughes admitted. "It's understandable because it's his first season in one of the strongest and most physical leagues in the world. He's playing week in week out and he hasn't done that for a long time.

"He's come into a new league, a new team, a new club, and initially had a great impact but he's not used to playing every week. There's been a reaction to that and he has not been able to have the impact he had in the first half of the season. He has great qualities but we have to find a way of getting the best out of him because it's patently obvious we're not doing that right now."

City sent a private jet to collect Robinho and Elano from Brazil's matches earlier in the season but did not put in place any special measures after Wednesday's 3-0 defeat of Peru in Porto Alegre, and Hughes was asked whether he saw the game against Arsenal as the right time to relegate the most expensive footballer in England to the substitutes' bench. Initially, he was reluctant to reveal his plans but, later, he privately acknowledged that he was unlikely to start with either of his Brazilians.

"We don't know for certain yet because we don't know who's going to be fit and well," he added. "We can make a decision on Friday when everyone is back [from international duty]. But Robinho has had a lot of travelling. Every time he goes away on international duty, it's not just a little hop into Europe. It's a trip across continents and that can have an impact as well."

Robinho is joint third in the list of Premier League scorers but his last goal was on December 28 and Hughes admitted the former Real Madrid player would have been left out before now had Martin Petrov, the Bulgarian international left-winger, not been injured. Petrov suffered a serious knee injury in October but is only a fortnight away from presenting a serious challenge to Robinho's place on the left side of attack.

"Sometimes the options haven't been open to me to change that part of the team," said Hughes. "I haven't really had the opportunity to take Robinho out of the firing line because my options on the left are restricted. We've had injuries when maybe the opportunity would otherwise have been there to take him out. We would have liked to have eased the workload on him."

Hughes also believes opposition teams are increasingly devoting their attention to Robinho. "They know now what he is capable of doing if he is allowed to play," he said. "They know he can win a game on his own. We're at a point now where people understand what he wants to do, and they will try to stop him. That's a learning process for him. Once he has recognised that, it will help him have more of an impact."

Injuries permitting, Hughes now seems certain to abandon his usual 4-2-3-1 formation for a more conservative 4-3-2-1 system that will see Stephen Ireland take Robinho's usual position, with Shaun Wright-Phillips on the right and Felipe Caicedo the most likely replacement for the injured Craig Bellamy. Vincent Kompany, Nigel De Jong and Pablo Zabaleta will pack City's midfield as the Uefa Cup quarter-finalists try to improve an away record that has seen them win only once, and take eight points, on their travels all season.

"On occasions we have played too openly," said Hughes. "We play a very expansive game at home and away from home we've tried to play in a similar way and paid the penalty for it. You need to be nice and solid when you play away and give yourself a platform."

Robinho, intriguingly, has never cited fatigue as one of the reasons behind his poor away form, but he did point out earlier in the week that he found it easier to play for Brazil than his club side. "He was making the point that international football is completely different," said Hughes. "It's played at a different tempo and it's very different to the Premier League. The intensity of the Premier League is there for everybody to see. It's easier to express yourself when you have more time on the ball."

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