SVEN-Goran Eriksson will not bat an eyelid if the Blues become the first ever Premier League side to qualify for Europe through the Fair Play League - twice!

Although the more conventional route into Europe is still open to an inconsistent City side, they are now strong favourites to get into the UEFA Cup through the back door just as they did under Kevin Keegan.

And Eriksson insists that it is just fine by him so long as his stars don't start to think they are already on holiday and still put in maximum effort from now until the end of the season.

"I think we can still qualify through Intertoto or Fair Play but we cannot do much about the latter except behave when we are on the pitch. I think it depends on whether England is the top country. I will take getting into European competition any way we can.

"What we can do is play better than we did last week against Birmingham. The players are not on holiday yet. They have a lot of hard work to do."

At the moment England top the European Fair Play table with a score of 8.117 but are only marginally ahead of Norway who lie second on 8.113. If it remains that way on the closing date of April 30 then an additional UEFA Cup slot comes the Premier League's way.

Domestically, the Blues lie sixth in the Premier League Fair Play ranking but all five teams above them - United, Spurs, Liverpool, Arsenal and Everton - look sure to already be Europe bound.

Eriksson's side average 8.28 points ahead of Wigan (8.23) and Reading (8.20) in the battle to clinch England's nomination.

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