Manchester City are struggling to find a new shirt sponsor.

The Mail on Sunday says City are seeking to replace Etihad Airways as their shirt sponsor but the search is being hampered by the chaos surrounding Roberto Mancini's sacking and uncertainty over the club's future.

Tom Glick, the club's American chief commercial and operating officer, is using a group of external consultants and agencies to find sponsors and, according to one source, initial feedback is that City "are not the easy sell that was perhaps imagined".

The source, who has knowledge of City's commercial affairs, says: "Developments over the past four or five weeks haven't been helpful. The defence of the title ending so early and with no real fight was bad enough, especially after failure to progress past the Champions League group stage. Then the manager's been fired in embarrassing circumstances after not winning matches that were expected to be won, like the FA Cup final.

"For all this talk about a 'holistic' approach, we've yet to see consistency in how different parts of the club are operating."