Ranking the eight Premier League clubs who lost the most players to Manchester City
Manchester City’s transfer history from 2009 to 2018 has been put under the microscope following the reported 114 guilty verdicts coming their way, but which Premier League clubs lost the most to them in that period?
Plenty of fans are wondering what could have been and while there is talk of lost titles, even clubs not competing at the top end of the Premier League found themselves losing crucial players to a reportedly illegal operation.
A total of eight Premier League clubs sold players to City during that nine-year period and while some were robbed of talented youth prospects, others saw their main stars leave.
Here are the eight clubs ranked on how much the transfers impacted them.
8. Fulham – Patrick Roberts Fulham arrive at the bottom of this list as their only loss was Roberts.
An academy product, Roberts made 19 league appearances for the Cottagers before Manchester City came calling and while his career has not turned out as expected, Fulham are right to wonder what could have been had he stayed.
7. Tottenham – Kyle Walker Walker was a huge loss for Spurs and while they received an English record fee for him, it did feel like the end of any chance of a sustained title bid from the London club,
Walker was a key part of Mauricio Pochettino’s team that had just finished second in the Premier League. They did stay in the top four for the first two campaigns without the full-back, but then slipped out of contention as they failed to reinforce effectively.
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6. Swansea City – Scott Sinclair and Wilfried Bony Perhaps most annoyingly for Swansea fans is that City signed their two best players, then proceeded to barely play them.
Sinclair scored 36 goals in 91 games for the Welsh club only to go on and make 19 appearances for City in a three-year period, failing to register a single goal or assist. In total, he played just 385 minutes for a club that spent £8m on him.
And then a few years later, City bought Bony following 27 goals in the previous two years for Swansea.
City spent £25m on him but did not get much of a look in and once Pep Guardiola arrived, he was put on the transfer list.
Both these deals feel like ‘we will buy them because we can’ rather than considered moves.
5. Leicester City – Riyad Mahrez Of the three stars of Leicester’s title win, it was Mahrez who would go on to have the most success in the Premier League.
Unlike N’Golo Kante who left immediately, Mahrez did at least stay for another two seasons but had already said in the summer of 2016 that he wanted to leave.
In the end, he got his move to Manchester City for £60m and Leicester’s title-winning trio had been reduced to just Jamie Vardy.
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4. Liverpool – Raheem Sterling For a Liverpool side that wanted to prove it was back amongst the top contenders, this felt like a real statement of what the food chain actually looked like.
His agent was particularly vocal about wanting to move to City and Liverpool batted away bids of £30m and £40m before finally accepting a £44m deal.
Sterling went on to win numerous titles while Liverpool ended that first year without him in eighth.
3. Aston Villa – Gareth Barry, James Milner and Fabian Delph As Gabby Agbonlahor has pointed out, Villa lost some crucial players to City over the years.
Barry was one of the first of Abu Dhabi’s signings but over the years, City took Delph and Milner from Villa Park too.
2. Everton – Joleon Lescott, Jack Rodwell, Gareth Barry and John Stones Everton have seen plenty of their young talents head off to City.
Stones’ £47.5m move in 2016 is the obvious big loss – for them and Chelsea – but Jack Rodwell was also an exciting prospect before his departure and sudden fall off.
City also took Lescott in 2009.
1. Arsenal – Emmanuel Adebayor, Kolo Toure, Gael Clichy, Samir Nasri and Bacary Sagna Arsenal fans will feel aggrieved at recent lost titles but in the early days of this City period, the Gunners saw plenty of their players head for Manchester as well.
Arsenal to City was a well trodden path in the 2010s and all of them were first-team players.
Emmanuel Adebayor was one of the first to go, joining City for £25m in the summer of 2009, but over the years Clichy, Toure and Bacary Sagna left with the last being for free.
And there was Nasri who became the target of much booing anytime City played Arsenal.
The transfer direction switched in recent years with Oleksandr Zinchenko and Gabriel Jesus heading the other way but both of those were players City were happy to get rid of.
