Sven Goran Eriksson managed Manchester City will play in the UEFA Cup season next season, after the Eastlands club claimed the last UEFA Cup Spot by winning England’s Fair Play Award. The Premiership Fairplay Table can be seen here. As the table clearly shows, Manchester City are sixth with 1263 points. The top five, from first to fifth are Spurs, Liverpool, Manchester United, Arsenal and Everton. Spurs will play in the UEFA Cup thanks to their brilliant League Cup win over Avram Grant’s Chelsea. Liverpool, United and Arsenal are in the Champions League, and Everton finished fifth in the Premiership table, which meant that they took England’s solitary Premiership UEFA Cup spot.
City fans would have had their hearts in their mouths when Richard Dunne was sent off in the club’s final day 8-1 thrashing by Middlesbrough. Fortunately, City were able to keep their noses ahead of Fulham. City have 1263 points in the Fairplay Table, with Fulham on 1260. Fulham, as we know, staged one of the best league comebacks we have seen in a long long time to avoid relegation.
The Fairplay spot went to England for the 2008-09 season ( England topped UEFA’s fairplay table), thus enabling the country to send four instead of the traditional three teams to the UEFA Cup next season.
Manchester City’s last UEFA Cup appearance came in 2003, when they qualified due to the Fairplay Rule. City beat Total Network Solutions 7-0 in the qualifying round and followed it up with a 4-2 aggregate win over Belgian side K.S.C Lokeren in the first round. Unfortunately they went out on away goals in the second round, losing to Polish side Yskobolia Grodzisk Wielkopolski.