At £8.8million, Rolando Bianchi did not come cheap. But the former Reggina star was the City hero, lashing home from 20 yards to give the Blues victory.
The win was totally deserved and should have been achieved without the late fright Bradley Orr provided Eriksson with when he levelled Emile Mpenza's first-half opener.
But Bianchi's name figured prominently in a list of missed City chances, and a nervy ending would have been given a dramatic injury-time twist had Mark McIndoe's cheeky back-heel not correctly been ruled out for offside.
When the two finalists take their place at Wembley on February 24, 32 years will have elapsed since City last won a major trophy.
• Eriksson pleased to avoid banana skin
That long wait, filled mostly by the sight of Manchester United collecting silverware like it was going out of fashion, means any Blues manager that eventually leads the club to glory would be assured of hero status for the rest of his days.
Not that it has looked likely in this competition over the last couple of years.
Defeats at this stage to Doncaster and Chesterfield have only added to the wreckage of previous City embarrassments in cup combat, where conquerors also include Halifax, Shrewsbury and Oldham.
Even though the hosts made a bright start, the prospect of a third successive giantkilling seemed highly unlikely until Orr levelled.
A side showing with eight changes from the one that went down to Arsenal at the weekend had been too good for their Championship opponents.
The one obvious frailty was their failure to show a touch more subtlety in front of goal. Had they done so, City could have had their place in Saturday's last 32 draw sewn up by half-time.
Mpenza had already wasted one good chance before he broke the deadlock and strike partner Bianchi was just as wasteful on a couple of occasions.
It was a problem which also affected debutant Shalem Logan.
The 19-year-old local boy, yet another academy graduate to roll off the City production line into the Blues first-team, took up some superb positions but failed to find a finish.
On the second occasion, he even skipped past home captain Louis Carey inside the box but drilled a low shot into the side-netting.
All the hosts could muster in response was a couple of Lee Trundle efforts, the first of which, admittedly, was a superb curling effort which required a fingertip save from England Under-21 keeper Joe Hart to keep it out.
Given his side's dominance, Eriksson must have shuffled uncomfortably in his seat when Bianchi shaved the post with City's first chance of the second period, knowing full well that with a mere single goal advantage they were in no way safe.
A warning duly arrived on the hour mark when Hart was forced to fling himself across goal to keep out Mark McIndoe's 25-yard piledriver.
Yet City did not heed the alarm call and when McIndoe floated a free-kick onto Marvin Elliott's head midway through the half, Bradley Orr was on hand to hook home from eight yards.
In years gone by, it would have been the signal for a meek surrender by the visitors.
Eriksson, no doubt fearing the kind of penalty shoot-out which scarred his time as England manager, has injected this team with sterner stuff.
And, 10 minutes from the end, Bianchi stepped forward to finish the tie, although McIndoe did provide one last scare before the visiting faithful could celebrate their win.
Eriksson pleased to avoid banana skin
Manager Sven-Goran Eriksson admitted he was a relieved man after Manchester
City scraped into the Carling Cup third round with a 2-1 win over Bristol City.
'I am relieved to be through,' confirmed the former England coach. 'We should have finished it much more easily. We had five or six good
opportunities to score in the first-half alone.
'But the rules of football are always the same. If you don't take your
chances, eventually you will suffer.'
Ironically, Bianchi had been one of the main culprits, spurning two gilt-edged
chances before half-time and another immediately after the break.
But the £8.8million summer arrival from Reggina kept his nerve when it
mattered, scoring for the first time since the opening day win at West Ham to
ease City into the last 32 and keep alive their hopes of breaking major trophy
drought which stretches back to 1976.
'That will be great for Rolando's confidence,' said Eriksson. 'Any striker who does not score tends to get a little bit down and he had a
couple of opportunities before that.
'At that point, we were thinking there might be extra-time but he found the
finish when we needed it.'
Eriksson now has 48 hours to bring in the additional new faces he believes are
required to make City a top-flight force.
Departures appear inevitable too, with Danny Mills linked with a move to
Charlton and Georgios Samaras apparently a target for Middlesbrough.
However, Eriksson denied a move for Inter Milan's Brazil striker Adriano,
although, tantalisingly he did add: 'Even if I had made contact with him I
would say no. Take that how you want.'
The Swede offered opposite number Gary Johnson a few concilliatory words,
which were well received, even if it hardly made up for an offside flag ruling
out what would have been an injury-time leveller for Mark McIndoe.
'There are very thin dividing lines between success and failure,' said
Johnson.
'If that had gone in, I would have fancied our chances in extra-time,
although to be fair to Mark he thought he was just offside.'
What did wind up Johnson up was his side's stand-offish attitude during a
first-half City dominated completely.
'I had a go at the players at half-time because I felt they were being a bit
posy,' he said.
'It was as though they wanted to look like Premiership players. They weren't
anywhere near angry enough.
'In the end, I thought we gave a good account of ourselves. If Sven says we
did well, he means it. He is not the type of bloke to say that if he didn't.'
Bristol City 1 - 2 Manchester City
