Former City boss Sven-Goran Eriksson thinks the Blues will eventually win the Premier League and believes that that the club’s progression is a positive for English football.

Sven, who is now trying to plot Notts County’s rise back to prominence from League Two was talking ahead of yesterday’s England World Cup qualifier to the Sunday Mirror’s Anthony Clavane.

 “Can City win the League? Of course they can. It would be exceptional if they did, of course,” he declared.

“Who knows in football? Maybe. This season, perhaps, winning it would be too good to be true.

“If you want me to put £100 on Manchester City winning the league straight away, well, no I wouldn’t. But they will win the league sooner or later.”

Eriksson added: “I think it’s good for the game that you can now see, quite early on, that we have now five teams who will fight for the Champions League places.

Now it’s Manchester United, Chelsea, Arsenal, Liverpool – and City. It’s the top five, not the top four. That’s good for football. I’m very happy for the fans of Manchester City.

...Sven...

Robinho is of course very much part of the City revival though if the papers are correct in their early rumour mongering ahead of the January transfer window, then the Brazilian is likely to be moving on in the New Year.

The Mirror, the People, the News of the World, Express and Star on Sunday all have Barcelona waiting to pounce when trading opens again. Some of them conclude that Vincent Kompany, who is yet to play this season, is also Nou Camp target but that Yaya Toure and Carlos Puyol could well come the other way.

Finally the Daily Star on Sunday thanks to a joint effort from Paul Hetherington and Steve Millar tells is that Micah Richards is ready to quit City in an attempt to get his career back on track. They say that the defender has even reached the stage of identifying which clubs he could join in January which seems a bit strange for a player who has been selected more than any other during Mark Hughes’ reign.