Birmingham City's new ownership regime hope to adopt Arsenal's footballing blueprint in order to make the Blues one of the biggest clubs in the country.

It's a bold statement, but the club's chairman, Vico Hui, believes that he, together with owner Carson Yeung and director of football Sammy Yu can accumulate the financial muscle to challenge even oil-rich Manchester City.

The reasoning behind the ambitious assertion? As Hui puts it, "City's owner's have oil, we have people" - referring to the enormous potential audience that awaits the Blues in China, if they can turn on the style.

Yu, who counts himself as a footballing expert from the gras roots of the game right up to lucrative spectacle of the Premier League, wants his side to develop an attractive footballing philosophy before anything else.

He asserted that if Alex McLeish's side can develop a brand of football to rival that of Arsenal or Barcelona, they will begin to enlist more support from China's 1.3bn population, who have never been a nation of football enthusiasts.

"It has been a decade where worldwide football has been too conservative," Yu told Telegraph Sport.

"In the last three of four years, teams like Arsenal, Manchester United, Barcelona have led football into another decade. It is about how you play the game, the quality.

"Arsenal may not be winning everything, but they have won a lot of support. This is something we have to learn.

"Supporters want to enjoy football. How to make them enjoy it is not the elbow, the hard tackle, or the swearing anymore. But teamwork with the highest levels of individual skill.

"Everyone loves to watch football like that. As a football man, a coach, we have to open our minds to how to make our players better.

"If you can do it, the fans will come. We have to insist upon this for the future of the club."

Easier said than done though Mr Yu.