Manchester City cruised back to winning ways after beating West Brom by three goals to nil

Things in the world of professional football can go from great to grievous in a matter of days, and that’s exactly what happened to Manchester City earlier this month. One day we were hot on the trails of league leaders Chelsea and the next moment we were six points adrift of them and struggling to hold on to second place in the league. When the league began in the month of August, the last thing we City fans would have been expecting was a scrap for second or third place especially after the title winning season we had last year, but the truth is that we have indeed blown the chance to retain our prize and all that we can do right now is hope to finish as high up the table as possible.

City won last year’s Barclays Premier League thanks to a terrific run of form towards the end of the season

In my last few articles for this site, I remember saying that our season was over as we had nothing left to play for and while that statement is not entirely incorrect as we do in fact have no silverware to fight for, I would like to admit that I jumped to conclusions too quick. While winning trophies should be the ultimate aim of any football club, it is not the be all and end all of a club’s existence. For Manchester City, the aim that we should have right now is to finish as high up the Premier League table as possible, and that simply means holding on to the number two spot. There are quite a few reasons for wanting to finish as high up the league as possible. For one, it’ll sound a lot better if we can say that we finished second in the league as compared to saying that we finished third or fourth in the league. Secondly, prize money is also a huge factor here. For those of you still unaware of this fact, the Premier League awards prize money based on where a team finishes in the table. So, the higher up the table you finish, the more prize money that you get. A higher amount of prize money will assist us in another way as well.

City boss Pellegrini has not had the best of seasons, but he must make sure that his side do not lose the number two position on the league table

Not only will we have more funds available for us to spend on new signings, but also, we’ll be able to balance out or income and expenditure amounts to bring it in line with the Financial Fair Play rules. In fact, the truth is that City are one of the few clubs who are not required to sell before they buy, so the extra money that we get from finishing second would actually help us satisfy the FFP requirements more than it would help us spend on players. The club’s latest financial report showed a 28 percent rise in revenue that was largely owed to them lifting the Barclays Premier League last year and while the club did make a loss of 23 million pounds, it is expected that they will meet UEFA’s FFP requirements and hence, making sure that we can hold on to the second spot would go a long way in making this possible.