Edin Dzeko Served Manchester City Well, but Roma Transfer Suits All Parties

Title-winning seasons always have their moment—the one instance that gets replayed again and again and is held up as the symbol of when dream became reality. For Manchester City’s two recent Premier League triumphs, those moments remain crystal clear.

Close your eyes and you can see them now, can’t you?

There’s the unforgettable Sergio Aguero goal against Queens Park Rangers to seal the 2011/12 season in the most dramatic manner possible. Then there's Steven Gerrard’s traumatic tumble against Chelsea that swung the title pendulum away from Liverpool and back in City’s direction two years later.

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Those are set in stone, but what’s often forgotten about is the hard work that makes them possible in the first place.

Against QPR, there needed to be an equaliser before Aguero’s moment, and after Liverpool quite literally fell away, City needed to win four games to secure the title.

Key to all of that and more was, of course, Edin Dzeko, who at the time of writing stands on the verge of a move to Roma, having travelled to the Italian capital to complete the formalities of his deal, via Samuel Luckhurst in the Manchester Evening News.

It is a sad moment for City supporters who took to Dzeko during his four-and-a-half years at Eastlands, but as far as the club and the player are concerned it is certainly the correct decision.

If the signing of Wilfried Bony from Swansea City last January pushed Dzeko toward the exit door, then the arrival of Raheem Sterling this summer effectively levered the Bosnian out of it.

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As Sterling showed last season during frequent spells on his own upfront for Liverpool, the 20-year-old will be more than capable of leading the line alongside Aguero. Their partnership will be rich in pace, trickery and dynamism, with Bony around as cover in case of injury or the need to change the approach.

Where does that leave Dzeko? Well, Rome, as it turns out.

At 29 and a symbol of his national team, the forward desperately needs football, and so this switch to Serie A is coming at a perfect time in his career.

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Forwards in Italy tend to get better with age, and with the likes of the quicksilver Juan Iturbe, the recently signed Mohamed Salah, the iconic Francesco Totti and Dzeko’s Bosnian teammate, Miralem Pjanic, around to provide him with service, there is every reason to believe that he’ll be a huge hit in Rome.

Back in Manchester—and with Stevan Jovetic also packed off to Italy—the attack of Aguero, Sterling and Bony has a legitimate claim to be one of the very best in the division, with the creativity behind them only getting all the better with the potential arrival of Kevin De Bruyne. The Guardian’s Jamie Jackson expects De Bruyne to become City’s final summer signing in the coming weeks.

Everywhere you look there are upgrades and younger, hungrier players, but that shouldn’t distract from the brilliant job Dzeko did at City—often under difficult circumstances.

His five goals across the three games against Crystal Palace, Everton and Aston Villa at the tail end of 2013/14 were effectively what hauled City over the line and past a Liverpool team who were gasping for air, adding a fourth major trophy to a hugely successful time in England.

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That success came to an end last season, though, and Dzeko frequently wasted the opportunities given to him by manager Manuel Pellegrini who—like Roberto Mancini before him—always seemed to be willing to give him short bursts in his team but never long ones.

The fact that he was often fresh enough to make telling contributions at the tail end of campaigns was the upshot, but he needs more than that now.

City do too, and someone else will have to make the moments possible for them this season.