CITY’S 50th game in the Uefa Cup ended in anything but golden triumph.

But there was a distinct silver lining to their dismal defeat in Santander last night as they still qualified of the last 32 of the competition in first place in Group A and can now look forward to more European football in February and the ‘easier’ draw they craved.

Goals before half-time from Jonathan Pereira and Serrano supplemented by Valera’s second half strike sent a much weakened Blues side to a first 90-minute away defeat in a competitive match on foreign soil since 1979.

The stark truth is that City can seldom have been so ineffective abroad than in this half-hearted, supine performance that bordered on surrender. Those who paid to travel from Manchester had every right to be brassed off though they supported with their usual good-humoured fortitude.

If three decades ago someone had told City fans that they wouldn’t lose another away game in Europe until December 2008 all kinds of smile-inducing scenarios would have entered their heads.

One of the scripts would have included a trophy cabinet stacked to its lofty brim with the continent’s best silverware but another could well have been a tale lamenting the sorry dearth of success in the intervening years.

As it happens, sadly, the second storyboard has been nearer the truth than the first though the Blues did go into last night’s contest unbeaten in their last seven European away games stretching back to the dim and distant glory days of the 1970s when they were downed by Borussia in Monchengladbach.

Since that March night when Margaret Thatcher was about to become Prime Minister, the Bee Gees ‘Tragedy, was number one in the charts and Ian Rush had just made his debut for Chester, they had won six and drawn one of seven ties on foreign soil.

However, no side has ever scored more than one goal at Racing's El Sardinero Stadium in a UEFA Cup game and City never looked remotely capable of bucking that particular trend.

Boss Mark Hughes, with one eye firmly on Sunday’s clash at bottom of the table West Brom, decided to rest Shaun Wright-Phillips, Stevie Ireland and Vincent Kompany.

Already without new dad Richard Dunne, the club’s second most expensive signing Jo and one of its most promising teenagers in Daniel Sturridge it meant there was a distinctly unusual look to the eleven that started the game. Only four started the previous match – the 1-0 home loss to Everton.

It led to justified grumbles from the travelling City fans who had spent a lot of money and their pre-Christmas time travelling to northern Spain expecting to see the club’s first string and while it is easy to see their point it was a case of damned if you do and damned if you don’t for the manager.

If Wright-Phillips, Ireland or Kompany had been injured in a game that was never going to alter qualification - only the terms of it - and missed the busy league programme that looms then the manager would have been forever answering questions about why he hadn’t rested them.

If fingers are to be pointed it should have been at the performance at home against Paris St Germain when a win would have sewn up the top slot in the group and left no one in any doubt about rotation policy.

Racing, who needed to win to prolong their first Euro adventure, built the game up to the extent that the ground announcer described somewhat poetically as a ‘match to feel the intense emotion of football’.

It may well be the case that the day is remembered for this win rather than the removal of the last statue of dictator General Franco from the seaside town which happened before a huge crowd a few hours earlier but ‘intense emotion’ was a bit strong.

Boredom and frustration were the two most prevalent sentiments in the opening exchanges until City fell asleep and conceded the opening goal.

Ben Haim’s rash tackle 30-yards from goal - after he had been caught so deep as to be 10 yards behind his nearest colleague - gave the Spaniards a free kick that was taken swiftly and with Pablo Zabaleta still out of position Serrano ran free and crossed low and hard. Kasper Schmeichel could only push it out to Pereira who scored from six yards.

The game was over as a contest as the half hour approached when Serrano easily cut the Blues open down the middle this time and after a one-two with Pereira slotted beyond an apoplectic Schmeichel.

With PSG sewing up the group for City in Paris, Robinho went off to save his ankle being made worse at the break and though Ireland and Kompany perked City up a little is was still Racing who dominated and got a third when Valera scored from close range surrounded by statuesque defenders.

Substitute Felipe Caicedo scored a consolation tap in – his first goal for City – in injury time. Too little much too late.