Ranking the 5 best transfer windows of all time: Manchester City

Feyenoord v Manchester City - UEFA Champions League
Manchester City are one of the world's richest clubs

When it comes to a team like Manchester City – one of the richest sides in the world, thanks to Qatari money – while results in the Premier League and Champions League aren’t guaranteed, the one certainty is that they’re always going to splash the cash when the transfer windows roll around.

Since the club’s takeover in 2008 City have spent some insane money; over a billion Euros in fact, on new players to strengthen the squad. During that time they’ve also gone through four managers – Mark Hughes, Roberto Mancini, Manuel Pellegrini and now Pep Guardiola – and have won the Premier League twice and have also claimed a handful of cup victories.

Which transfer window was the most successful for City, then? It’s tricky to say given the amount of hits and misses that the club have had in the market over the past decade, but here are my top five.

#5: Summer 2016/January 2017

Manchester City v Swansea City - Premier League
Manchester City v Swansea City - Premier League

Okay, so this one might be slightly cheating as I’ve lumped two transfer windows in together, but that’s because Man City only bought one player in the January 2017 window and that was Brazilian prospect Gabriel Jesus, who cost the club a cool £27m. He’s only made 18 appearances for his new club thus far but in those 18 appearances he’s looked like potentially one of the most dangerous strikers in the world and has already scored 12 goals.

2016/17 though was Pep Guardiola’s first season with the club and thus the players he signed were ones that fit his image of how football should be played – meaning tiki-taka with attacking moves starting by playing the ball out from the back. It didn’t all pan out well, admittedly.

Goalkeeper Claudio Bravo, who cost just over £15m, was a disastrous signing who cost City a lot of valuable points near the beginning of the season and ended up being dropped in favour of reserve keeper Willy Caballero at various points. And Spanish forward Nolito also struggled, only scoring 6 goals in 30 appearances and has already been sold.

On the plus side, though? Speedy winger Leroy Sane immediately fit into Pep’s side and played 26 games in the Premier League, earning a nomination for the PFA Young Player of the Year award in the process. Defender John Stones perhaps didn’t live up to his £47.5m price tag, but he remains one of the best prospects in the game and once his defensive prowess catches up with his Pep-loved ability to bring the ball out from the back, he may well prove to be a bargain.

Finally, midfielder Ilkay Gundogan started the season on fire – even scoring twice in a 3-1 Champions League victory over Barcelona – before injuring his knee, sidelining him for the rest of the season. If he can return to that kind of form though, the £20m paid for him wouldn’t sound like a lot of money at all.

Pep may not have won a trophy in his first season but his early signings may well pay dividends in the near future.

#4: Summer 2009

Manchester City v Manchester United - Carling Cup Semi Final
Carlos Tevez was undoubtedly Mark Hughes's best signing at City

It’s almost bizarre to think that 2009’s summer transfer window could be considered so good for Man City considering it was the final one under the leadership of Mark Hughes, who was fired just five months into the season after a poor start.

And it’s true that some of the signings made didn’t work out at all – Emmanuel Adebayor started well, for instance, but was soon packed off to Real Madrid and then Tottenham Hotspur, while Sylvinho and Roque Santa Cruz barely figured at all as City ended the season in 5th place.

Once Roberto Mancini took over as boss at Eastlands, though, things looked up a lot both for the club and for the majority of Hughes’s signings. Defender Joleon Lescott was practically an ever-present as City won the Premier League in 2011/12, as was holding midfielder Gareth Barry, who actually played a remarkable 34 of 38 league games in the title-winning season. And while defender Kolo Toure had begin to fade by that season, he did play a lot in his first two seasons there.

The biggest signing of the summer of 2009, though? Striker Carlos Tevez, poached from under the nose of bitter rivals Manchester United. He became the poster-boy for the new Manchester City – literally, as he starred on the infamous ‘Welcome to Manchester’ billboard – and while his City career ended somewhat acrimoniously, he was incredible in his first season – scoring 29 goals in all competitions, and even after he’d fallen out with Mancini, he still played a large role in allowing the side to capture the league in 2011/12.

Hughes had a reputation as a money-waster but the signings of Tevez, Barry and Lescott were key to City’s success after he’d been removed from power.

#3: Summer 2015

Manchester City FC v Sevilla FC - UEFA Champions League
Since arriving at Eastlands Kevin de Bruyne has been phenomenal

In a similar sense to how Mark Hughes’s final transfer window allowed him to buy players who benefited his successor far more than him, so Manuel Pellegrini’s penultimate transfer window ended up bringing in a handful of players who seem to be benefiting Pep Guardiola massively today.

Pellegrini’s League Cup win in his final season is actually the last piece of silverwear that City have claimed, but it seems ever more likely that Guardiola will win something this season and a couple of Pellegrini’s players may help him do so.

Most notable? Undoubtedly Belgian attacking midfielder Kevin de Bruyne. The Belgian may not have been considered good enough for Chelsea, but hindsight has proven that a terrible error in judgment.

He might’ve cost City £55m, but he was absolutely fantastic in his first season at Eastlands, scoring some spectacular goals including a winner against Paris St. Germain in the Champions League quarter-finals, taking City into the semis for the first ever time. And his form didn’t dip under Guardiola last season – he was arguably City’s best player in fact.

Raheem Sterling meanwhile was largely considered a flop despite featuring in 31 league games under Pellegrini. Since the arrival of Guardiola though he has improved immeasurably and seems to be reaching his best form again – he won the Premier League Player of the Month award in August 2016 and generally had a solid season, and he’s started 2017/18 on fire, scoring five league goals in as many appearances.

The signings of Fabian Delph and Nicolas Otamendi haven’t panned out quite so well, although Otamendi has at least played a lot of games for City, but despite that, the signings of de Bruyne and Sterling – signings that could allow Guardiola to reach success soon – make this one a good transfer window.

#2: Summer 2011

Manchester City v Crystal Palace - Premier League
The signing of Sergio Aguero was key to City finally winning the Premier League

2011/12 was the season that saw Roberto Mancini take Manchester City to the promised land – winning the Premier League title for the first time, in the most dramatic ending to a season possible, too, as they captured the league on goal difference over rivals Manchester United, relying on an absolute last-gasp goal to win the key three points rather than one in the last game of the season against Queens Park Rangers. The scorer of said goal? Argentine striker Sergio Aguero, captured for £40m from Atletico Madrid that summer.

The goal was just one of 30 that season for Aguero, and since then he’s gone on to average an incredible 28 goals per season, making him one of the most prolific hitmen in Premier League history.

It’s the signing of Aguero that makes me rank this transfer window so highly, although to be fair, before tailing off at the end of their City careers, Arsenal imports Samir Nasri and Gael Clichy were also great performers in the sky blue shirt, Clichy in particular playing the majority of the games in that first title winning season.

Spare a thought for poor Owen Hargreaves, though – the England midfielder was signed on a free transfer by City in an attempt to resurrect his injury-ravaged career, but he only made one league appearance all season and ended up being released as 2011/12 came to an end. Still, the Aguero signing was so important that the summer of 2011 remains one of City’s greatest ever transfer windows.

#1: Summer 2010

Manchester City v Sunderland - Premier League
Yaya Toure and David Silva are two of City's best-ever signings

Discounting January 2010’s transfer window – only Patrick Vieira and Adam Johnson arrived – the summer of 2010 was Roberto Mancini’s first proper crack at the transfer market with City and he made it count.

City finished third in the Premier League in 2010/11 and also won the FA Cup, and a lot of the success was down to a pair of players signed within two weeks of one another in July 2010. I’m talking, of course, about midfielders Yaya Toure and David Silva.

Both men arrived for £24m; Toure from Barcelona and Silva from Valencia, and both fit in immediately and were unbelievably good in their debut season – Silva was hailed by Carlos Tevez as “the greatest player City had ever signed” and won the club’s Player of the Month award three months running, while Toure proved to be a one-of-a-kind midfield powerhouse, and scored the winning goals in both the semi-final and then the final of the FA Cup, ending City’s 35-year wait for a major trophy. Both men remain at the club and while Toure’s time there appears to be waning, Silva is still an ever-present in City’s midfield.

While overshadowed by those two men, Aleksandar Kolarov and James Milner didn’t do bad for themselves either – Milner proved to be a tremendous utility player for Mancini and then Manuel Pellegrini and made plenty of appearances, while Kolarov remained a staple of the club until this summer’s move to Roma.

And while fans decried the bizarre Mario Balotelli, he also played a part in helping City to win the Premier League in 2011/12, as he provided the assist to allow Sergio Aguero to score that title-winning goal against QPR.

Due to the roles that Silva and Toure went on to play in their subsequent seasons, as well as their debut one for City, there’s no question that the summer of 2010 is by far the best transfer window that the club have had since their takeover.

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Edited by Shambhu Ajith