Shawn Goater's Manchester City made it three straight wins over Kyle Lightbourne's Stoke since the end of last season as Friday's 1-0 away victory kept City in the hunt for promotion from the English Second Division.

But even though Manchester City have managed to beat leaders Fulham, draw with third-placed Walsall and defeat Stoke in the last few weeks, they and Stoke still face a mammoth task to clinch one of the two automatic promotion places.

City are eighth in the standings, 14 points behind leaders Fulham and 11 out of second place, while Stoke, who have a game in hand, Preston and Walsall, are four points ahead of City.

"We play Bournemouth, the team right below us, next week and they are undefeated at home,'' said Lightbourne, who admitted the home loss to Goater's side had been a major disappointment. "We felt we did enough to get something out of the match. They are the first team to beat us twice in the league.'' Stoke had captain Phil Robinson sent off in the first half, soon after City scored their winning goal from a corner in the 20th minute.

"After that we were chasing the game,'' said Lightbourne, who was the lone player up front after the red card. "We had to reshuffle our pack and I thought we did reasonably well with just one man up front.

"It's a long way to go, still 19 games left, so it's still all to play for while we're up there with the pack. A couple of months ago we were six, seven points ahead of Preston and now they are in second place.'' Stoke's recent poor run has included four defeats in their last six matches as Fulham and Preston have put good streaks together to take a firm grip on first and second place.

"We just need to win a game and get back on track,'' said Lightbourne. "At the moment that seems difficult because we don't know where our next win is going to come from.'' Stoke's next four matches are against Bournemouth, leaders Fulham which will have to be rescheduled because it falls on FA Cup weekend on February 13, Millwall (away) and Wrexham (home).

The way Fulham and Preston have been playing recently would suggest that the two automatic promotion spots are already wrapped up. That would leave the other teams battling for the lone play-off spot into mid-May which may rule both Lightbourne and Goater out of Bermuda's Caribbean Cup matches.

"Hopefully we can get automatic promotion,'' said Lightbourne. "No one really likes to be in the play-offs. I would prefer the top three to go up, but then it adds excitement for the crowds.

"I've seen so many teams just sneak into the play-offs, because they were on such a good run towards the end of the season, and then end up getting promoted. That's so unfair because sometimes the third-placed team may miss out on the second spot by goal difference and end up not getting promoted.'' Lightbourne is already expecting Fulham, the team he joined for a month on loan last season when with Coventry, to clinch one of the two automatic spots.

"We just have to forget about Fulham, if they don't go up it's more or less their own fault,'' Lightbourne said.

"If we had spent the money that they have spent then we would expect to be right up at the top as well. Even Preston have spent quite a bit of money and it's paying off for them.

"We just have to keep battling away, we're not in a position to go out and buy. I think the manager was happy with the way we fought and scrapped for everything on Friday night. It was a battling performance.''