We had Sheikh Mansour in December 2008.
Our team was:
Hart, Zabaleta, Dunne (c), Richards, Ball, Kompany, Ireland, Wright-Phillips, Elano, Robinho, Caicedo
We were in the relegation zone because we were massively underperforming and shouldn't have been anywhere near third from bottom after finishing ninth the season before and spending about £40m in that Summer.
Hardly the bad old days.