Sven shocker

Sven: Paying a Thai price?

Manchester City - the perennial sky blue under achievers - are depressingly close to shooting themselves in the foot, yet again.

Not happy with simply living under the shadow of their hated and more successful rivals Manchester United, there are rumblings that new owner and former Thai PM Thaksin Shinawatra is close to pulling the trigger on coach Sven Goran Eriksson.

After a slack period in the second half of the season - which sees City languishing mid table with only three wins in their last 13 matches - ‘Shinatra’ said: ‘I’m not happy with the performance of the club in the second half of the season.’

‘We will look at it at the end of the season and assess the club and the people involved.

‘There are no plans at the moment. We will have to evaluate at the end of the season.’

Shinawatra also insisted there could also be a fire sale of under-performing players.

‘We’ll probably have to sell some players and buy some new ones.

‘We need some defenders, midfielders . . . midfielders are the key. We have some good players but we need more.’

It surely would be a hair-brained piece of management if Shinawatra was to ditch Sven. The tide has turned in the UK for the saucy Swede, after the disaster of Steve McClaren: England Manager. Many have reassessed Sven tenure and believe he did a good job with a bunch of over-rated primadonnas.

With a great early show for City, Sven proved that at the top level he is a formidable performer, He took a club in pieces and flirted with the big four for the first third of the season.

He built up the squad with some shrewd buys calling upon his in-depth knowledge and wealth of contacts on the international scene. And most importantly endeared him to City faithful.

Now Shinawatra risks throwing that all away.

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