Players ruined by Manchester City: Manchester City might be the best club in the world with some of the very best players in the world, but these guys have ruined the careers of one too many players, and today we will be speaking out for some of those guys.
These are 7 Players ruined by Manchester City
1. Kalvin Phillips
We’ll start with the most recent one, Kalvin Phillips. Phillips’ career was looking up when he was at Leeds United. He was an important player for a Premier League team and was sought-after by a number of top clubs, but it was Manchester City who managed to convince him, eventually signing him for 42 million pounds in the summer of 2022.
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But just one year after his signing, Pep Guardiola has totally given up on the midfielder without ever giving him a real chance. The former Barcelona boss said he just doesn’t see the Englishman in his team.
And that’s just facts! We’ve literally seen Pep use two defenders in the midfield (Stones and Akanji or Stones and Lewis) just to avoid using Kalvin Phillips. That’s how bad it’s been.
Now, the former Leeds man has lost his place in the England national team and is not getting many offers from big teams. If only he had moved to another team instead of Manchester City, right?
2. Joe Hart
With Joe Hart, it was a different case. This guy was England and Manchester City’s number 1 for years. He was one of the best goalkeepers in the league at the time and had already won the Golden Glove 4 times, a joint Premier League record.
He was really on top of the world until Pep Guardiola came through in 2016 and immediately kicked him to the curb. The Spaniard believed that Hart needed to improve his feet and the two appeared to get off to a shaky start together, filmed arguing in one of Guardiola’s first training sessions. Hart was dropped from the very first game of the 2016-17 season and that was the beginning of the end for him.
He first moved to Torino and then West Ham on loan, and then finally left City in 2018 to join Burnley, then Spurs in 2020, and Celtic in 2021.
As a result of all this, Hart lost his place in the England first team and went from being a legend to being a clown goalkeeper. Manchester City really ruined him.
3. Claudio Bravo
Claudio Bravo was just fresh off winning the European treble with Barcelona in 2015 and back-to-back Copa America titles with Chile in 2016. He was really on top of the world. But he joined City and everything came crashing down for him.
A man who had conquered Europe and South America with Barcelona and Chile somehow started to look like a novice at Man City. He lost his number 1 spot to Willy Caballero midway into his first season at the club and he never really made it back.
Ederson was bought as his permanent replacement the following year, and that was it for Bravo. Since then, the Chilean no longer gets included in world class conversations, but looking at how good he was for Barcelona and the Chile national team, he really should be.
4. Yaya Toure
Speaking of former Barcelona players who Man City ruined, you know we just could not leave out Yaya Toure. The Ivorian is actually one of Man City’s biggest legends, but he was treated very badly by the club.
This man carried Man City on his back for years especially in the 2013-14 season, scoring 20 goals from the midfield and leading the club to its second Premier League title in 3 years. He should have a statue outside the Etihad Stadium right now and should have had a more befitting farewell, but he was treated like a nobody. His fallout with Pep Guardiola was the reason behind all of this as two of them never really got on the same page while the Ivorian legend was at Eithiad.
5. Emmanuel Adebayor
Now, at this point, it seems like the common theme with all these players is Pep Guardiola, but the Spaniard surely didn’t have any hand in ruining Emmanuel Adebayor, City did it all by themselves.
The Togolese moved to Man City in 2009 after he signed a 5-year contract, but just halfway into his second season, City had judged him to be surplus to requirements. Tevez and Balotelli were already at the club and they still went out to buy Edin Dzeko. So, Adebayor was forced to join Real Madrid on loan in January 2011.
At the end of that season, he joined Spurs on a one-year loan deal, after which he made his move to the North London club permanent.
Adebayor was a high-flier at Arsenal and we expected that he’d fly even higher after moving to City, instead, City ruined him. He would end up moving from Spurs to Crystal Palace and then to clubs in Turkey, Paraguay, and Togo.
That’s surely not how the one-time African Footballer of the Year saw his career winding up, but guess you could say that that’s the Man City effect.
6. Samir Nasri
Just like Adebayor, Nasri moved from Arsenal to Manchester City. The Frenchman actually started out well, but he was often a target for the City fans. They blamed him for failing to block van Persie’s winning goal in the Manchester derby in December 2012, and in 2013, the coach Roberto Mancini said he “would like to give Nasri a punch” because of his inconsistency.
And then his injury woes didn’t help his case at all, so it quickly went downhill for him at Manchester. He left City to join Sevilla on loan in 2016, but it didn’t exactly work out for him in Spain, so he moved to Antalyaspor in Turkey in 2017. But it only got worse.
In Turkey, Samir Nasri was found guilty of doping and was banned for a year and half!
He tried to restart his career with a return to the Premier League after moving to West Ham in 2019, but it still didn’t work. So, we can categorically say that Manchester City was the last place where Samir Nasri really balled.
7. Benjamin Mendy
Finally, let’s look at Benjamin Mendy! We all know what happened with the allegations the Frenchman had to face and the court case he had to battle for years, but during this time, Manchester City completely neglected him.
Mendy was slapped with his first lawsuit in 2021, but he was still a Man City player until 2023 when his contract with the club expired. But during those 2 years, the club never paid him.
Mendy has now dragged Man City to court alleging that the club owes him millions of pounds in wages, seeing as they stopped paying him in September 2021.
Imagine having to fight several legal battles over the span of two years while your employers refuse to pay your salary. It must have been really tough. The club really ruined Mendy.
Is there a club that has ruined more players than Man City?
Let us know in the comments.
