CITY are ready to go nose-to-nose with neighbours Bolton in the battle for European qualification.
The two sides lock horns at Sportcity in a week's time and by then the Blues expect to have closed the gap in their late grab for glory.
Victory in tonight's televised match at Norwich would hoist Kevin Keegan's men back into the Premiership's top 10 and keep alive their long-shot dream of UEFA Cup qualification.
If City are to hang on to the coat-tails of the Euro chasing pack, then nothing short of three points in Norfolk will do.
The way the Premiership and cup competitions are panning out this term means that the seventh place side at the end of the season could well find itself the proud owner of a lucrative European spot.
At present that looks a long way off for the Blues who, according to the statistics gleaned from previous campaigns, need to win eight of their final 11 matches in order to find themselves in the 57-62 point bracket that more often than not secures a top seven place.
In their favour is the fact that they still have to play the six sides immediately above them - including Bolton in that tasty home derby next Monday night - and do not have to take on any of the Premiership's leading quartet between now and curtain fall on May 14.
Victory over relegation-threatened Norwich tonight would be the ideal way to bounce back from derby day disappointment and prove that there is life in City's campaign and ambition still running through the players' veins.
Defeat would almost certainly be the end of the Euro dream for another 12 months and help clear Wanderers' path.
Sam Allardyce's team began the weekend with a seven-point cushion over City. If the Blues are to grab a top seven spot it would be a personal best for a club that has never finished higher than ninth since the inception of the Premier League back in 1992-93.
And should Keegan's men stage a ferocious late rally, then they are also going to have to pass the club's best ever Premiership points total of 57, achieved the first season of the re-vamped competition.
Defender Danny Mills is one of the players not giving up on a crack at the high life.
"If certain teams win certain cups that will probably mean an extra UEFA Cup place available from the league and that will take it down to seventh place," he noted on the eve of his return to his former club.
"We have got to keep fighting for that. We are only five or six points off it and a couple of wins could make all difference, and who knows what might happen. We have got to keep trying hard and got to keep looking to push on.
"At the start of the season our aim was to challenge for a European place and we have to maintain that right to the very end.
"We're sitting in mid-table mediocrity at the moment. The lads are all a bit frustrated with the way some of the results have gone this season. We've had some good results against the top teams, but we haven't performed too well against the teams near the bottom, and I suppose that will give Norwich some heart.
"But we've still got plenty to play for. We need a couple of wins to make sure we're totally secure, and if we could string a run of results together we could still make a challenge for a UEFA Cup place, which was our target at the start of the season. The middle of the table is very tight, so that's still a genuine possibility. We're not on schedule at the moment - but we'll keep giving it a go."
Meanwhile, Bolton's Greek star Stelios admitted that their Champions League dream was virtually over after their 2-1 defeat at Newcastle yesterday.
Everton, who occupy the fourth and final Champions League place at the moment, are 11 points ahead of Bolton with 10 games to play after their win on Saturday.
Stelios said: "It will be very difficult for us to get into the Champions League now but we can still make the UEFA Cup if we can put a good run together."
Manager Sam Allardyce, desperate to be the first boss to lead Bolton into Europe, said: "The game at Manchester City next Monday is massive now.
"I would have preferred not to have waited such a long time to play again but at least we have the time for a big build-up."
Can City make it to Europe? Have your say.
Tweet
Comments
Login or Register to comment
This is a non story. The only way were going to get into europe next season is on holiday. Since we lost Anelka weve hardly scored a goal. The only part of the city team which is europe standard is the defence. We have the slowly attack in the prem and swp apart rarely look like scoring from midfield
With the attacking force we have at our disposal we'll do well to finish in the top half. The amount of games we win between now and the end of the season will depend on how many great games SWP has. As KK has previousely created teams with attacking capabilities and only 18 months ago said we had more goal scoring capability than the old Newcastle team, this shows how far backwards we have gone in that department.
We will not qualify for Europe!!We have been inconsistent all season, I expect the inconsistency to continue to the end of the season. A top ten finish would be nice. CTID
oh yes dude... you will become champions. win the fa cup the league cup and europe too... come on you fools get alive! Schmeichel junior will join us in summer... dont wory you bitters...
If we qualify for europe then I,m the son of a motherless goat!
Who will score the goals to win us games? As already mentioned, we will be lucky to stay in the top half I'm afraid without sufficient firepower. KK will go in the Summer you see, I just hope it isn't Sam Allardyce that's being lined up to replace him as rumours are rife that he was at City last week!
Nice to see a post from redtom who clearly acknowledges that the rags are in such dire straits that they now want our 17 year old 4th choice keeper, Kasper Schmeichel! As Fred the Red (your best mate, Red Tom?) says, hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha.
Citeh in Europe, yeah and keegan will be voted the PL`s most successful manager!
Have you forgot the ladies of Groclin!!!!!
all i can say is that the likelihood is that city will win as much as utd this season - nothing
Nuts to Europe. I'll settle for mid-table + attacking football. Come on KK, let's see the brand of football you gave us in the first two seasons.
How many times have we heard the 'city aiming for europe' story? its gettin old...the last time KK said we're aiming for the top six, we finished 16th. mid table would be good. i think our position this year depended heavily on who kev brought in in january. since we havent reinforced, we cant expect a great position.if we can get a couple of new faces in the summer we could do better next year, regardless of whos in charge. bolton? Europe? not in my lifetime...
For the last time. Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo we can't.
Dave, my daddies bigger than yours.......................
Bobster, Konstanz, Germany and Joel, Bath like both of you my feelings are now to settle for mid-table mediocrity too, but I am far from happy about it. At the end of the transfer window City were 6 points off 6th placed Boro. Whilst still occupying that position Boro are now 9 points ahead with a game in hand. A win tonight would restore our 6 point deficit. We have another 10 games to play after tonight, that's 30 points available. A good run would see us in Europe. So why am I settling for mid-table mediocrity? Well it's all down to the men who run this club. Their shortsighted stumbling during the transfer window has ensured mid-table is all that is now achievable. With Anelka wanting away, and even if he didn't go he would not have been worth playing again anyway, we failed to secure a replacement. Mido, Beattie, Morientes, Pandiani were all available during the transfer window. Bellamy was available on loan and at City would have no need to moan, as he would be able to play up front. Robbie Keane may have been tempted and Spurs may have accepted talks for good money (but may have wanted to talk SWP as well b " no way!). So instead we get Kiki on loan. No disrespect but he looks mighty short of match fitness, but even this doesn't matter much considering that he is still better than much that has occupied the wide left birth this season. " We had no money to buy a forward!" I hear you cry. Rubbish. Half of our 62 million debts is a mortgage. Most of the rest are long-term loans from Wardle (yes he gets interest on this and it makes him money). The mortgage is an accounting asset as it pertains to the long-term lease on the stadium. So effectively, if we need to sign players we are able to get money to do this as our assets would allow us to and our debt service is not over-stretched. So why was KK not allowed to go and sign a replacement for Anelka? The cover story would be that without Anelka's incoming fee guaranteed that there was no money available for transfers. Given the above being true then that is not the case. Maybe the 6 points difference was seen as too significant a difference? I hope not. Perhaps KK couldn't entice anyone to the club? I would hope the Keegan name worldwide still holds a little temptation for Pro soccer players. Or maybe, Wardle has totally lost confidence in KK, won't sack him cos he doesn't want to take the backlash of the payout KK would be entitled to, especially given the debacle that was the dismissal of Royle, and so we as supporters are left facing mid-table mediocrity because there is nobody left at the club with balls. Sounds more like the truth to me. Without positive action when you are poised in a reasonable position to mount an attack on a European place you may as well not bother. Good luck Bolton, I hope you do get that European place. Your positive thinking, supportive board have backed your hard working, tactical manager (who has made a profit for the club in the transfer market). If it's a race then City are still mentally at he starting line whilst Bolton are into the last furlong.
One day we are competing for Europe the next day the story is we have enough points to stay up, instead of the evening news wasting half a page on non events why dont you expand your coverage of all Manchester sports and feature more on them to fill your pages instead of rubbish. Being a rugby league fan you'd think only Salford played rugby in the area Swinton, Rochdale, Oldham all have teams to write about them or would everyone prefer to read about Alex Ferguson going with sugar on his cornflakes or not.
Same old story from Kev again. If we have a bit more luck, or if we can go on a run or if we can just hold onto our better players a bit longer.We haven't won more than two premiership matches on the trot since Kev brought us out of the 1st Division. I'm totally fed up with the same old phrases coming out of his mouth. We play some nice football with decent players in the team, but the truth is that most of our squad players just aren't good enough ANYMORE to get into Europe, never mind play there ! Ok so KK is honest enough to say that we will struggle to hold on to SWP, well isn't that inviting approaches for our star players ? What we should be hearing is that KK absolutely rollocked the players after the Oldham debacle, and things like this. If we buy players they should be better than those we have, and players should be offered contract extensions if they have earned it. So please get Bosvelt signed up for one more year. We need Mills to realise he isn't always first choice and still has to fight for his place, so give Nedum a few games so Mills sorts his distribution out. Finally we will have to pay Kev off in the summer because we need to bring in better players and a better manager who doesn't have the same failings as our present one. Moyes has been the best motivator in the league this season, we all believe KK was the best at this, not any more. Hopefully the board have a short list of maybe four managers to replace KK and have spoken to some of them already. So here's my wish list ; Strachan, Ranieri, Co Adriaanse or maybe Martin O'Neill. Anyone of these should give us more of a chance to improve our premiership status and hopefully crack the top six. If we can become a consistent top six side then we have every chance of dropping lucky and getting the last champions league place. So lets not settle for mid table mediocrity and hope that the board make the right decision in the summer and get a more modern thinking manager !
I think that now is a good time to clear the decks at city and rebuild, start by letting KK go a year early get a new man in at the end of this season and let him decide whether he wants to keep any of the players with contracts up for renewal what we dont want is to sign up several players for another year then get a new manager in who cant buy anybody and has to work with players who dont fit in with or cant play his system. I have wanted Gordon Strachan as manager ever since he became available as he speaks a lot of sense and is one of the best british coaches in the game and his passion is there for all to see. This is City though so we will either appoint Stuart Pearce(please God no) or get some foreigner we've never heard of. I like KK but this season especially in the past couple of months he looks tired and some of the passion he's been famous for seems to have dissapeared.