Players leaving

Increasingly persistent rumours about possible departures: Dunne, Richards, Johnson seem to be the most likely, followed by Hart, Elano, Petrov. (I'm writing about players I'd be sad to see go; I hope Eriksson's departure won't stop Dickov, Sun, Bianchi, Corradi, Mills and Samaras from leaving).

I guess this depends on how strong a bond the players developed with Eriksson. Intuitively you'd think that the British academy players would be more likely to stay in that they have a long standing connection with the club that predates Sven. And those players Sven brought to England would now feel rather stranded by his departure. Elano, Petrov, Corluka and Fernandes' presence at City is contingent on Eriksson in a way that Johnsons etc is not.

So does that mean the English players will stick and the foreigners will leave?

I'm not sure. The argument could go the other way: the foreign players, having established themselves in City are here to stay now and would not want to uproot themselves again to go and play in Spain or Italy or wherever. This presumes a primacy of non-footballing reasons in players' movements, but I think that might be legitimate. Many of them might be enjoying their high wages, house in Cheshire and children in English schools; therefore inclining them against moving to continental Europe where socio-economic opportunities are limited. Equally, it would not be much of an upheaval for Richards or Johnson to move to Arsenal or Liverpool or United -and so for them footballing factors would be more powerful than non-footballing ones.

So it could go either way.