Manchester City fans are hanging on tenterhooks today waiting to hear the outcome of both Sven Goran Eriksson’s future and the final calculations of the Premier League Fair Play League, which will ultimately decide whether or not City pick up a UEFA Cup spot next season. However, it looks like neither decision will be forthcoming until the end of the week at least as reports emerged that Jose Mourinho’s return to coaching is imminent.

Yesterday’s drubbing at Boro and the ongoing manager saga has begun to leave a bitter taste in the mouth over an otherwise successful season. It’s a depressingly well-trodden path of turmoil for the club and we can only hope now for a swift resolution to the Sven situation.

Perhaps fuelled by yesterday’s result, a divide of opinion is now opening up among City fans with some unhappy that Sven appeared to have given up yesterday. Questions are now being asked about his motives over the last couple of weeks. Others prefer to point to the inevitability of yesterday’s collapse following the recent events. We can’t escape the difficult truth that our new owner has in one season both rescued the club financially and then thrown it into immediate end-of-season turmoil.

Whatever happens, Thaksin Shinawatra needs to act swiftly and decisively before the situation at the club gets any worse. We’ve lost the credibility we had built up over the season in the space of a few weeks. The club is in a sensitive situation, needing ongoing nursing out of the depths of lower league football. The vultures are circling around our best players, some of whom we’ve been nurturing for years.

As if the script-writers hadn’t already been second-guessed enough, a UEFA cup spot is a possibility through the Fair Play league. There appears to have been a fair amount of mis-reporting on this subject. Certainly Richard Dunne’s red card didn’t help. However, the latest Fair Play league table doesn’t include the penultimate game of the season when Fulham picked up two yellow cards and City had none. In any event when the numbers are crunched these cards will not make a huge difference. It’s the more subjective scores around respect for officials and opponents that will make the difference. The final decision is not expected to be announced until the end of this week, or early next week.

Will Thaksin hold on until the UEFA Cup spot is announced before he makes his decision? Will it make any difference? Is there any chance at all Mourinho will sign up? Who knows anything any more? It’s easier to predict a 10-game accumulator on the coupon than to figure out what might happen next at City. Ric Turner sums up well in the Times Online. Balloons, Thai politics, hanging on the Fair Play league, maybe sack the manager. We’re breaking new ground here. But lets keep a sense of perspective. The sun is shining and we’re still in the Premiership.

Finally, our poll asking if City fans would consider a home games boycott closed this morning. 83% said “Yes” they would consider boycotting home games next season if Sven is shown the door. We’re looking to guage a fresh view in our new poll. Please take a look and vote now by clicking this link.