Transfer Nightmare After Winning The League

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Dribble

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Manchester City missed out on two gamechanger signings after winning Premier League for the first time...​


"Manchester City were hopeful of making two game-changing signings after their first Premier League title but ended up experiencing a horrific transfer window.

City pipped rivals Manchester United on goal difference in the dying seconds of the season, with Sergio Aguero scoring a last-gasp winner against QPR.

Roberto Mancini already had a talented squad at his disposal but immediately stressed the need to continue strengthening.

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Mancini identified Robin van Persie and Eden Hazard as their top two targets and hoped for to land the pair for a total of £60 million.

He also wanted to sign Daniele De Rossi from Roma but ended up with one of the worst collection of signings for a title-winning side.

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Brian Marwood signed Scott Sinclair, Jack Rodwell, Javi Garcia, Matija Nastasic and Maicon and unsurprisingly finished in second place, 11 points behind United."

I'm STILL scarred by that shit 2012 summer transfer window. IIRC, none of the players Marwood bought were at City 2 seasons later.

Nastasic aside, the rest were an unmitigated disaster & a complete waste of money. No wonder Mancini was so pissed. ¯⁠\⁠_⁠(⁠⊙⁠_⁠ʖ⁠⊙⁠)⁠_⁠/⁠¯

https://www.sportbible.com/football...nsfer-signings-premier-league-684406-20240109
 
remember that so well. Chelsea winning the CL stopped ultimately stopped us from getting hazard if i recall, but absolutely no excuses for the absolute shitshow of incomings that arrived that summer. Sinclair and Rodwell were just a complete disaster.
 
It was so underwhelming, and Marwood bottled it massively. I remember the 2-3 home defeat to the Rags in December (you know, when Nasri shit his pants at a piss poor Van Persie free kick) and thinking, we're going backwards rapidly. Horrible season.
 
Garcia had a largely forgettable career in a City shirt. Scott Sinclair was laughable considering he was a rag who’d done an interview saying how much he’d enjoyed scoring against us for Swansea.
 
All the signings made sense on paper at the time.

Rodwell was young, talented, homegrown, and actually looked a player for us when he was fit. Maicon was an experienced wing-back who was clearly signed for that 3-5-2 formation Mancini wanted to use more often but then ultimately moved away from. Javi Garcia was way better than a lot of fans gave him credit for and he formed part of the midfield that won the title over Liverpool in 2014. Sinclair had just finished the previous season with 13 G/A (only two short of Adam Johnson's 15 G/A) in a promoted side and was worth a gamble at £6m, it just didn't work when he arrived. Nastasic was good, he just got that bad knee injury in 2013 after being made to play on a swamp during an unnecessary mid-season tour of Hong Kong and China.

And, honestly, in the end it didn't really matter because if those Pellegrini rumours hadn't leaked on FA Cup final day we'd have finished the season in 2nd with some silverware to go with it. And then we had a cracking summer in 2013 and won the league following season. Our one genuinely bad transfer window under Sheikh Mansour came after beating Liverpool to the title, imo - that really did set us back years and it took Pep coming in and completely ripping up the transfer policy for it to be sorted out. It made sense to get Mangala, he just didn't work out, and Sagna turned out to be a decent buy. But Fernando, Zuculini, and Bony didn't feel like great buys at the time and, looking back, deciding to completely freeze out Dzeko so we could accommodate Bony was a terrible move.
 
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