Manchester City manager Sven-Goran Eriksson is awaiting news of his fate after the worst result of his career against Middlesbrough.

City suffered an embarrassing 8-1 defeat to bring the curtain down on the Swede's first season in English club football.

However, it could be his last at Eastlands as his job was under threat even before the capitulation at the Riverside. Former Thai prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra has already expressed his disappointment with the final outcome of Eriksson's ten months in charge.

That is despite the Swede guiding the club to ninth in the Barclays Premier League - their best finish since Kevin Keegan led them to eighth in 2004-05 - and a possible place in the Uefa Cup awaiting via the Fair Play League.

Eriksson said: "To live in the unsecure is never good for anyone but I hope to not be living in the unsecure very soon, within hours.

"I expect to speak to people - or they speak to me - from the owners' side but I have had no answer about the future yet."

Of the effect the speculation about his job had on the players and the performance, he added: "You can never measure that."

The victory was Boro's biggest in the top flight since they put eight past Huddersfield in 1950.

Manager Gareth Southgate said: "It was a mad day, wasn't it? I think from our point of view, I don't think we've had a lot of good fortune this year and we seemed to get all our good fortune and all our goals in one day."

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