Manchester City’s worst fears were confirmed yesterday when Thaksin Shinawatra, the Barclays Premier League club’s controversial owner, said that he is considering the possibility of sacking Sven-Göran Eriksson at the end of the season. Eriksson has done an impressive job since taking over as City manager last July, but despite strong denials from the club, there have been suspicions for some weeks that the Swede’s job is under threat.

Although City are eighth in the table with only four matches left — a far cry from last term, when they flirted with relegation — Thaksin has been unhappy with the team’s slide out of the top four during the second half of the season and will make a decision on the manager’s future once the campaign is over.

The former Prime Minister of Thailand said yesterday that he had never met Luiz Felipe Scolari, but the Brazilian, who is expected to step down as Portugal coach after Euro 2008 this summer, has been touted as a possible successor to Eriksson. Asked at a business conference in Dubai whether he would sack Eriksson and replace him with Scolari, Thaksin, who appointed the Swede after buying the club in an £81.6 million takeover last summer, said: “There are no plans at the moment. We will have to evaluate at the end of the season.

“I’m not happy with the performances of the club in the second half of the season. We will look at it at the end of the season and assess the club and the people involved.”

Eriksson has the backing of the majority of the City board, Pini Zahavi, the “super agent” who advises Thaksin, the players and the supporters, who recognise the sterling job that the former England head coach has done, having been appointed only five weeks before the start of the season.

Thaksin has been advised that he would be making a serious error if he decided to replace Eriksson and that such a move would not only risk annoying many within the club but, more troublingly, could lead to a revolt among the fans, most of whom have taken the manager to their hearts and reacted with a mixture of disbelief and indignation to the news yesterday.

City remained tight-lipped last night, but Kevin Parker, general secretary of the supporters’ club, described the prospect of Eriksson being dismissed as “frightening”. “If Thaksin’s role in Thailand is to present himself as the voice of the people, then he should hear the voice of the supporters and ensure that Eriksson keeps his job,” Parker said.

The removal of Eriksson, who has not spoken to Thaksin since last month but is said to be relaxed about the matter, would also make poor financial sense. With the former Lazio coach only nine months into a three-year contract worth £2.5 million a year, it would cost at least £5 million to pay him off.

Although an experienced politician, Thaksin is still being schooled in the world of football, with one source claiming yesterday that his naivety could create “entirely unnecessary, wholesale problems” if he was not brought round to reason by those better versed in football matters at the club. Only last month, Thaksin stated that a top-ten finish was the aim this season, but with City on course to achieve that, the Thai may have since readjusted that target.

“Everyone knows that when a club changes manager there needs to be a bedding-in period, but City’s results were so good under Sven in the first few months of the season that Thaksin must have thought that challenging the top four would be easy,” the source said. “That could not be further from the truth and now Sven seems to be paying the price for his own fine start. There must be some perspective, but there appears to be a real danger of that being lost. The owner really needs to step back and take a look at just how much the club has achieved during Eriksson’s reign.”

Eriksson is not the only one whose future is uncertain, however, with Thaksin also indicating yesterday that there could be changes on the playing front. “We’ll probably have to sell some players and buy some new ones,” he said. “We need some defenders, midfielders . . . midfielders are the key. We have some good players, but we need more.”