Shinawatra's Thai throwaway: What a waste if Manchester City axe saviour Sven

There can't be many Manchester City fans who would not agree that this has been their best season for many years.

And if reports are to be believed, Sven-Goran Eriksson was set the target of achieving a top-10 finish. Such a target was perfectly reasonable for the club, and it has been comfortably achieved. But now it seems that Thaksin Shinawatra has moved the goal posts and decided that this isn't good enough. What did he expect - the title, Champions League football or European qualification?

He is clearly living in cloud cuckoo land because that was never on the cards. Yes, they spent money in the summer but so did a lot of other teams who already had much stronger sides.

Eriksson did a superb job of putting a team together, and let's not forget he managed it after being appointed just a few weeks before the start of the season. While many clubs had already identified their targets, begun negotiations and even completed deals, Sven was still working out where his new office was!

The squad he took over had a few decent players, but was small and very under-powered. If you believe the league table doesn't lie, then you can only conclude that overall the club were woeful the previous season, and if things hadn't changed they only had a relegation battle to look forward to this term.

Instead, they have enjoyed a season which saw them riding high in the table until Christmas, unbeaten at home for a long time, and looking like a side with a promising future. Yes, they faded as the season went on but even the most ardent of supporters must have expected that.

Players coming into the Premier League for the first time from abroad, with a few notable exceptions, need a season or so to settle in and adapt to the game here. Some of the biggest names over the last 10 years have needed time to adapt - Thierry Henry and Didier Drogba, for example, looked completely out of their depth when they first arrived.

All signings are a gamble, and some players never adapt to the pace of the Premier League or even just the culture and routines of a new club. If you look at the signings made by any successful manager, you will discover plenty of expensive flops amongst the players who went on to become key players for their sides, and the same has proved true of those that Sven hurriedly brought in.