Manchester City Ten Years Ago This Week

Ten years ago this week Manchester City held on against Middlesbrough to secure a hard fought 1:0 victory thanks to a Man of the Match performance from Shay Given in goal.

Back then Manchester City were a very different proposition to the Club we now know. The 2008/9 season became something of a transition season as the takeover of City by Sheikh Mansour took hold and the trail blazing signing of Robinho began to settle.

What sometimes gets lost in the story of the takeover is that the season before under the stewardship of Thaksin Shinawatra as chairman and Sven Goran Erikksen as Manager really did promise so much but as the Thai authorities caught up with our exiled chairman our results went off the boil and cash flow became a real problem at City.

But none of that takes away from me some of the memories I have of the great 2007/8 season which at the time I believed was the best I had seen since the early 1990’s. After the takeover the expectations began to raise and the squad underwent further development but ten years ago was really just the beginning.

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In the game against Middlesbrough, City fielded a strong side. Shay Given was in goal and delivered a trademark Man of the Match performance. In front of him was a back four comprising Micah Richards, Nedum Onuoha, Vincent Kompany and Wayne Bridge. In Midfield we had pablo Zabaleta, Nigel De Jong and Stephen Ireland. Up front we had a formidable three of Craig Bellamy, Robinho and GShaun Wright Phillips.

Looking at  the City substitutes bench against Middlesbrough probably gives the greatest indication of the extent of the transition we were in at that time. The bench was made up of Joe Hart, Elano, Darius Vassell, Garrido, Fenedes and Caicedo.

The manager of City at the time was Mark Hughes, someone I was never very happy with. Under Hughes this season never quite pushed on in the way everyone had hoped and ultimately big decisions were made by the board to make changes at the top of the club to push on. It was the brave decision to invest further in the squad and the appointment of Roberto Mancini that really started to embed the changes in our side as we began to claw our way to the top.

Given that this week we are playing Arsenal I thought I would compare City now with the City team who featured against Arsenal ten years ago. In  the season 2008/9 we played Arsenal earlier in the season at home. The game took place on 22 November 2008 and City ran out 3:0 winners thanks to goals from Ireland, Robinho and a last minute penalty taken by Daniel Sturridge.

The journey that City have been on is immense and the accomplishments in the last ten years are greater than I ever even dreamed were possible.