Manchester City have played down speculation suggesting Sven Goran Eriksson's job was under threat.

Reports over the weekend claimed that City had lost confidence in Eriksson following the team's poor recent results, with Thaksin Shinawatra lining up Portugal boss Luiz Felipe Scolari as a possible replacement.

However, City have stressed they are happy with the season as a whole and looking forward to building on their success.

"The chairman made it clear recently that he was happy with the progress made and that a top-ten finish was his target this season," head of communications Paul Tyrrell said in the Manchester Evening News.

"Our win at Sunderland equals the club's biggest points tally in Premier League history and with four games to go everybody remains focused on continuing the dramatic progress we have under Thaksin Shinawatra and Sven-Goran Eriksson."

Eriksson is likely to meet with Shinawatra next weekend to discuss his plans for the summer.

"We are having ongoing discussions about transfer targets," he said. "The people around Dr Thaksin know more or less what we want to do.

"I am glad we have equalled that points record and now we want to beat it. There are four games to go and we can still qualify for Europe.

"We've had a lack of confidence recently and the only way to get that back was to fight, to defend well and win a game.

"We have done all that now. The spirit was back to where it should be."

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