May 5 is two months away and if you support Manchester City, it could be the worst day of your life. Looking into a crystal ball and trying to predict what will happen in the future is a hazardous business but it does not take Mystic Meg to work out that on the first Saturday in May, Manchester United could win the Barclays Premiership title at the City of Manchester Stadium and send their local rivals spinning out of the top flight for the first time since 2001.

What goes around can come around. In the final match of the 1973-74 season, Denis Law’s backheel at Old Trafford condemned United to a season in the wilderness of the second division. United supporters old enough to remember that dark day in their club’s history still feel the pain. City supporters celebrated like there was no tomorrow, even though their team finished fourteenth. If you support City, imagine Gary Neville and his teammates lifting the Premiership trophy in front of you after your team have been relegated. Imagine a boot stamping on a human face — for ever.

Stranger things have happened, but, six weeks ago, any United supporter anticipating such a scenario would have been told to go away and sit down in a dark room. City were comfortable in mid-table, Micah Richards was worth £18 million and Stuart Pearce was singing the praises of his players and talking up Joey Barton’s chances of breaking into the England squad. One Premiership goal later, City are seventeenth, playing like a team who are destined for the drop and Pearce has hit the panic button by blaming the board for not backing him in the transfer market.

“Over the last two or three years, we have not speculated as well as we should have done financially and it is probably catching up on us,” the manager said. “Our rivals have spent a lot more than us. We have to invest more.”

How that admission of weakness will affect his players’ fragile confidence at a crucial point in the season is anyone’s guess, but Pearce may have been better advised to keep his thoughts to himself until the summer. There is no arguing with Pearce’s maths when he claims that he has spent £11 million and recouped £24 million since he replaced Kevin Keegan two years ago, but considering the dismal contribution of some of his purchases and his side’s plight, his comments — when the transfer window is shut and his team are supposed to be fighting for the lives — smacked of desperation.

Should a manager who thought that Georgios Samaras was worth £6 million be given more money to spend? Not according to the City supporters, who have to watch the pedestrian Greece forward every week. Every Premiership side needs four strikers, but has a top-flight squad ever contained four more ineffective forwards than Samaras, Bernardo Corradi, Darius Vassell and Paul Dickov? City’s Premiership record of 20 goals in 27 matches tells its own tale.

“We have to put the ball in the back of the net between now and the end of the season and then look at where we need to strengthen,” Pearce said. “Some transfers work out and some don’t — that is the nature of football.”

On the evidence of this pitiful performance against Wigan Athletic, City will need to strengthen even if they are playing in the Coca-Cola Championship next season. Wigan played like a team who were desperate to climb above their opponents and away from the relegation zone. City played like a team sleepwalking towards disaster. While Samaras and Corradi preened and posed, Caleb Folan, Emile Heskey and Lee McCulloch busted their guts to score the goal that would silence the home crowd and spread apprehension and fear through the City ranks.

Folan, who is playing like the hungriest forward in the Premiership after his £500,000 transfer from Chesterfield in January, was too hot for Richard Dunne and Sylvain Distin to handle, especially when he evaded his markers to beat Nicky Weaver with a firm header from close range after 18 minutes.

“I am very disappointed with the way we approached the game,” Pearce, whose side still have to play Chelsea, Arsenal and Liverpool as well as United, said. “The players will be made aware during the week of our shortcomings and we will be learning lessons from getting beaten at home.”

Wigan are too good to go down. City’s fate is in their own hands — that’s why their supporters are worried.