Place at top table passes Mancini by

ENGLISH PREMIER LEAGUE – THE RACE FOR FOURTH:In a normal season, fifth place would be great, but last night was a brutal moment for City, writes DANIEL TAYLOR

AND SO, after all the extravagant spending, the multi-million-euro signings and all the talk of a brave new world, Manchester City’s aspirations of a place at European football’s top table are gone for another year.

Nobody could say they froze. Roberto Mancini’s players attacked with purpose and intent. Adam Johnson flickered in front of Fabio Capello and Carlos Tevez sporadically demonstrated why he should have a speech ready for tonight’s player-of-their-year event.

But ultimately they came up just short and, as the game reached its final stages, Mancini, usually so refined on the touchline, could be seen screaming into the night air, kicking out those polished shoes and releasing all his pent-up frustration in the knowledge that a place in the Champions League was about to pass him by.

For City, it could be safely described as their most important match since the play-off final against Gillingham that saw Joe Royle’s team clamber out of the old Third Division 11 years ago.

Nicky Weaver and Paul Dickov, their heroes from that gruelling day at Wembley, were introduced to the crowd beforehand and it was a reminder of how far the club, under their various owners, good and bad, had travelled since those times when they reeked of bad organisation and Joy Division pessimism.

The modern-day City is an altogether different beast and it is not an exaggeration to say that, for the money men in Abu Dhabi, the Champions League has become an obsession. They could, in theory, still reflect on a season of great progress even if the fourth place eluded them: the team have lost fewer league games (six) than Manchester United (seven) for the first time since 1989, and they have finished above Liverpool for only the third time in 48 years.

But in another sense it would represent a disappointment of such extremes that, fair or not, Mancini’s position would come under scrutiny.

Could Category A targets such as Fernando Torres be persuaded that City were a club of competitive strength and genuine achievement were they to fall short and find themselves among the Thursday-night, Channel Five also-rans? The answer is probably not, regardless of the bags of gold on offer. Champions League clubs are a whole lot more desirable than Europa League ones, and whoever gets fourth place will have top footballers wanting to join them in droves.

All of which helped to explain why the tension inside the City of Manchester Stadium felt suffocating at times. The crowd seemed to appreciate Martin Toal singing Nessun Dorma before kick-off, perhaps not realising they were applauding a Manchester United supporter, and when the game began it seemed like a trick of the mind that Stuart Pearce, the manager from a different era altogether, once complained that this stadium sounded like a library. But it was not long before the giant screen picked out someone in the crowd clasping his hands together in silent prayers.

The action was evenly balanced for the first half. Both sides created chances, and played with a sense of adventure, using the wings. Both teams also made mistakes, which was a telling part of the evening. But the disappointment for City is that, in the second half, when they should really have been pressing forward, it was their opponents who emerged as the more accomplished team.

There was something dishevelled about the home team in those parts of the night. Passes were misplaced, too often for a side that would like to believe they merit a place among that elite group of European clubs. Tevez’s partnership with Emmanuel Adebayor became predictable. Johnson faded out of the game and, in the centre of midfield, Patrick Vieira was unable to take hold of the game as he once would.

In those final few minutes the crowd roused themselves for one defiant last chant of Blue Moon, but the atmosphere was funereal.

In a different era, fifth place would represent an exceptional season, but the ambitions have changed and this, for Manchester City, was a brutal moment.