West Brom preview

I can't remember being as worried before a City game as I am this morning. Maybe Middlesbrough away in March 2007. Our plummeting league position would be sufficiently disconcerting in itself, but given the hyper-expectancy around the club it is an embarrassment.

But league position is just a symptom of form, and ours is atrocious. I thought the derby was the worst midfield performance I'd seen from City for years - and that I would not see anything that bad for some time. But then there was PSG, when we were even more shapeless. A nadir, I hoped. Then Fulham, though, when we failed to win any balls in midfield or string passes together. Everton was as bad a performance as I've ever seen. I didn't see the 8-1. Racing Santander was not as consistently bad as Everton - but the first half could match any other forty five minute spell for incoherence and spinelessness.

Our recent form in all games is bad - but so is our form this season in difficult away games. This was the ultimate, and fatal, failure of the Eriksson era. Those losses at Birmingham, 'Boro and Reading - the draws at Fulham, Derby and Bolton - were what really cost us in the end. As an experienced Premier League battler, and the creator of such a side, I thought this was an area in which Hughes would excel. But no: we've lost at Wigan, 'Boro and Bolton already, and drawn at Hull, Fulham and Newcastle. Some change.

So our recent form in general, and our season's form in these particular sort of games, bear a doubly dark omen. Of course, West Brom are the worst team in the Premier League and themselves dreadfully out of sorts. But that hasn't stopped teams from taking points off us in the past. I am still of the minority of fans who don't want Hughes to be sacked. But if we lose today, as I imagine we will, I'll have to reconsider.