10 Manchester City signings who failed to impress

Manchester City, with all the resources of Sheikh Mansour and the Etihad Corporation, have invested heavily on a number of players over the last six and a half years. Some of them, like David Silva, Vincent Kompany, Yaya Toure and Sergio Aguero, have repaid the faith placed in them proved by heavy fees the administration paid for them.A few others, like Samir Nasri, James Milner and Edin Dzeko have been at their best consistently enough to justify the investments made on them. A few, like Mario Balotelli and Carlos Tevez, were good for the club but left in acrimonious circumstances.However, many have been inexplicable signings for the club with regards to their ambition of being the champions of England. We take a look at some botched transfer activity by the Mancunians: players who really never showed up their full potential, or were not good enough for the club given their ambitions at the time.

#1 Robinho

He is the first of the many players to be signed for big bucks by the Etihad Group during their time in charge of Man City, and it took him just his first press conference to make a gaffe, infamously stating his happiness at his transfer to Chelsea instead of Manchester City.

He was then ranked among the world’s best players and had finished in the top 10 of the 2007 Ballon d’Or 2007 (Real Madrid’s lone outfield representative). He was expected to adapt easily to the Premier League given his mazy dribbling skills, speed and eye for a pass, but Robinho failed to make much impact despite a bright start to his City career when he scored a free kick against Chelsea on his debut in a 3-1 home loss.

He did play well enough in the 2008/09 season to score 13 goals, but the next season he battled injury and was ruled out for a three-month spell and scored just one goal. He even fell out of favour with manager Roberto Mancini. In a bid to secure his national team place, Robinho went back to his youth club Santos in the January transfer window.

Although he did well there, he did not want to remain in England. He was eventually transferred to AC Milan for £15 million, causing a hit of over £18 million to the club. He has never been the same player ever since his transfer to City.

#2 Jo

He was signed from Spartak Moscow for what was initially thought to be £19 million, but later turned out to be £6 million pounds as Thaksin Sinawatra had sought to gain publicity and support for himself with the move in the last month of his spell as owner of the club. Neither amount justifies his signing, however, as Jo failed to adapt to the Premier League and recapture his Spartak form (he had scored 44 goals in 77 appearances for them).

He was sent out on loan in two separate spells to Everton and Galatasaray during his first two seasons, having only been in the squad for the first six months under Mark Hughes. When he eventually returned to Manchester in 2010/11, he failed to break into the first team which already had Emmanuel Adebayor, Carlos Tevez and Roque Santa Cruz.

All in all, Jo made 41 appearances and scored 6 goals for City in his ill-fated tenure in the Premier League and was sold to Brazil side Internacional. That works out to £1 million per goal scored, without even including his wages. It was ad business in what was otherwise a good transfer window, with Vincent Kompany and Nigel de Jong having also been signed in the same period.

#3 Maicon

Man City’s dilly-dallying in the 2012 summer transfer window and their failure to beat their neighbours United in their pursuit of Robin van Persie had sent bad signals to the management, who moved quickly on deadline day to strengthen the squad in the face of renewed competition at the top of the league table from both Chelsea and United, significantly stronger after their business in the transfer window.

One of the panic signings they made was Maicon, who was still near the top of his game despite being aged 31, and ranked among the world’s best right backs. What City failed to realize was that they already had ample talent in the form of the ever-present Pablo Zabaleta and the dependable Micah Richards, and the position they actually needed to strengthen was certainly not at a full back spot.

Maicon, in the face of competition, could not make many appearances and remained a peripheral figure, only appearing occasionally in the league matches once or twice a month. He left less than a year later for Roma on a free transfer, having only made 13 appearances all through the season.

At £3 million, Maicon was not very costly. But his signing and eventual departure represents the problem that overloading a squad of elite talent in a particular position can cause an imbalance to the squad. Now aged 33, Maicon is still playing at a fairly competitive level for Roma and had featured for Brazil in the World Cup.

#4 Scott Sinclair

A classic example of a panic buy gone horribly wrong, Scott Sinclair’s stock had been on the rise in 2012. And after two consistent seasons with Swansea, there were calls for him to be included in the England setup by Roy Hodgson for the 2014 World Cup qualifiers.

Sinclair had featured in Great Britain’s Olympics squad and scored once. He was signed for just over £6 million on transfer deadline day in 2012 along with Maicon, Javi Garcia and Matija Nastasic – none of whom have had good spells at the club – making it probably Manchester City’s most disastrous transfer window in recent times.

And that is how the slide in Sinclair’s career began. He made all of 14 appearances in City’s trophyless season and failed to feature in even one of their games in the ill-fated Champions League campaign. He went a loan deal to West Brom in 2013/14, but playing time was even rarer there as Sinclair appeared in just 8 games for the first team, mainly training with their reserves.

Back at City now, even with 4 months of the season nearly finished, and various injuries to midfielders in the squad, Sinclair hasn’t even been named on the substitutes bench all this while. With no goal at a top-division level for over 27 months, his career is at a total standstill, and City’s investment looks to have been in vain.

#5 Jerome Boateng

He is one of the world’s most assured and reliable centre backs today. But back in 2010, when Boateng was signed as a bright young prospect after a good World Cup, he was played out of position, mostly at right back. This contributed to a lack of confidence, a drop in performance standards and long spells out of the first team as Micah Richards, a more natural right back in good form, kept him out of the lineup.

Regular centre backs Vincent Kompany and Joleon Lescott were in great form and were played week in, week out as City qualified for Champions League football for the first time in the Sheikh Mansour era. Frustrated by his lack of game time, Boateng angled for a move back to his native Germany where he had shone with Hamburg in the Bundesliga.

Bayern Munich came calling and bought him for a fee of nearly £11 million, thereby ensuring that at least the £10.5 million invested on him made a good return. The problem with Boateng’s transfer, however, is that Manchester City had one of the best developing centre backs in Europe in their squad, but couldn’t use him well enough and get a return on the pitch, instead selling him to a club whom they themselves seek to rival, but have unwittingly strengthened with their own transfer policy.

#6 Benjani

Benjani signed for City in 2008 after impressing during his time at Portsmouth, but only managed 23 appearances in two years for the Blues, netting just 4 times. Already nearing the end of his prime when he signed for them at the age of 30, he cost nearly £4 million.

Although those 4 goals did come in important matches (a header in the Manchester derby and a goal against FC Twente in the UEFA Cup), he looked a ponderous player who could never be part of a Champions League squad. Benjani featured in very few matches after Mark Hughes was sacked and was replaced by Mancini, and he moved to Sunderland till the end of the 2009/10 season in search of playing time under then-manager Steve Bruce.

Benjani’s contract expired in June 2010 and he left to train for Blackburn, without too much success. His signing cost nearly £1 million per goal, added to his reported £50,000 pound weekly wage when he signed from Portsmouth in the January 2008.

#7 Glauber Berti

He was signed on a one-year contract by Manchester City in 2008, who definitely sensed that something was not so right about him, as Mark Hughes found out later on. Although Glauber was named on the substitutes bench for a long stretch of games in the 2008/09 season, he only made an appearance in the final game of the season.

That single appearance made by the Brazilian drew more cheers (albeit ironic) from the City fans than Felipe Caicedo’s goal in the opening minutes of the game, with him getting minutes as a left back instead of centre back, which was his natural position.

Five years later, as we hear about transfer speculation involving some of the best defenders being linked to the blue half of Manchester, Glauber is playing out one of the last legs of his uneventful career in the MLS with Columbus Crew. The only positive thing about the whole business was that thankfully for the club, he was signed for free after his contract with FC Nurnberg had expired.

#8 Jack Rodwell

He was touted as England’s next big thing in central midfield given his physique, reading of the game, tackling and overall decision-making that seemed to belie his tender age. But he failed to listen to experts and people around him, who advised him to stick to his boyhood club Everton instead of going for the big money move, and Rodwell was bought by Manchester City in the summer of 2012 for a fee of £12 million, with conditional add-ons that could have taken it up to £15 million.

Thankfully for City, that may not have been the case as Rodwell did not last too long. In his very first Premier League game for the reigning champions, he was directly responsible for both goals scored by Southampton, making it a tough match as City had to fight back at home to beat the newly promoted side 3-2.

Rodwell managed only 26 suspect performances and two goals in two seasons as City cut their losses and sold him to Sunderland this summer for £10 million, where he seems to be doing a lot better than earlier. A case of a big move at the wrong time for a talented player.

#9 Roque Santa Cruz

The lumbering Paraguayan, currently playing for Malaga and captain of Paraguay’s national team, has had a chequered and nomadic career. Having burst into the limelight at the age of 16 and signed by Bayern Munich at 18, Santa Cruz spent eight years in Bavaria before signing for the Blackburn Rovers in 2007, marking a downward slope in his career.

Here, he managed to resurrect his career somewhat, scoring 26 goals in 67 appearances. He then exited the club and signed for Manchester City for a fee of £17.5 million as Blackburn appeared destined to be rooted to the mediocrity of midtable finishes. He made little impact at City, however, failing to earn Roberto Mancini’s approval.

Having made just one league appearance in over three months, Santa Cruz departed on three separate loan deals; first at Betis in January 2011, then a goalless, 10-game spell at Blackburn before a more agreeable move to Malaga in 2012/13 where he managed to play a role in their run to the Champions League quarter-final.

Santa Cruz departed for free at the end of his 4-year deal at Manchester City signing a 3-year contract at the Andalusian club. His stay at Manchester yielded 4 goals in 22 appearances, a grossly under-par return.

#10 Stefan Savic

When signed at the age of 20, Stefan Savic seemed to be one of the best prospects in Europe in central defence. Arriving from Serbian side Partizan Belgrade for a £6 million fee, Savic was supposed to be a reliable backup along with Kolo Toure for Lescott and Kompany – expectations that failed spectacularly.

In a 4-game run that captain Kompany was banned for and while Toure was away on international duty at the African Cup of Nations, Savic had the opportunity to cement himself into the starting lineup. But a combination of untidy defensive work and nerves meant that his performances were frowned upon by both the press and the fans. Savic was responsible for Manchester City being knocked out by eventual champions Liverpool in the League Cup as a slip gifted them a penalty.

Similar errors in latter games led to him being firmly relegated to the bench till the end of the season as City did go on to win the league title on the last day. Savic was sold to Fiorentina in an exchange deal that brought even more woe to City later on in the form of Matija Nastasic.