After Manchester City’s flying start to the season Sven-Goran Eriksson has told us what he puts it all down to…respect

The Blues boss explained: “I think it’s how you treat people, that’s the base. I have to show respect to them [the players] and they have to show respect to me, the coaching staff, the kit man and the cleaners.

“If you are a father, which I am, how do you treat your children? You try to make them happy, you try to explain to them what to do to prepare for life. But you try to do it in a civil way, not in a bad way. If you lose all respect that’s the beginning of bad team spirit.”

And it’s a good team spirit built with players who clicked straight away at Upton Park in the first game of the season that have taken City to third in the Barclays Premier League.

The importance of that spirit is not lost on Eriksson, who added: “If you don’t have good team spirit, you will lose everything, maybe that’s the most important thing in football.

“I speak a lot about that with the players and I did it from the first day I came here. If you have a bad spirit in the group and you lose one game, then it’s very difficult to come back.

“If you have a good spirit and lose, okay let’s go on working at it, you can handle one, two or maybe three defeats, but with a bad spirit it’s very difficult.

“We lost against Blackburn and Arsenal, but the boys were very good the week after, so our spirit is good and that’s what we want to keep.”