How Richard Dunne and Sylvain Distin's Partnership Saved Manchester City
There are some names that just go together well. Morecambe and Wise. Laurel and Hardy. Rodgers and Hammerstein. There's an almost endless list of double acts down the years where two people have worked well together, making up for each other's weaknesses and boosting each other's strengths.
For Manchester City, one such partnership that served them well when a lot of other areas of the team were letting them down came in the centre of defence. Despite several years of struggle and mediocrity in the early 2000s, bosses Kevin Keegan and Stuart Pearce could rely on the centre of their defence to give them a fighting chance.
Add two more names to the likes of Sonny and Cher, Reeves and Mortimer or Simon and Garfunkel—Richard Dunne and Sylvain Distin.
Both centre-backs were captain at City for a period, and both were leaders on the pitch. Throughout the Premier League slump that the club suffered between 2003 and 2006, the Irishman and the Frenchman were constants in the team's year-on-year survival.
One was left- and the other was right-footed, meaning they both felt natural on their side of the defence.
That was no more highlighted than in what's often regarded as City's worst top-flight season, 2006-07, as Pearce's side managed 10 goals at home all campaign and spent the majority of matches creating nothing but one or two chances. Knowing that their strikers probably weren't going to score, both Dunne and Distin had to be at the top of their game to earn as many points as possible.
Dunne joined the club first. He was captured by Joe Royle for his City team in October 2000, moving from Everton in a deal worth in the region of £3 million. Initially played as a right-back, the defender was a mainstay in the side for his first season—though that changed when City were relegated from the top flight and Royle was dismissed as boss.
Under Keegan, Dunne was close to being let go. He turned up to training drunk and was almost sacked by the manager. Instead, with his manager and the PFA's help, he went through rehabilitation and would go on to be a shining light in the team, per the Irish Times.
The centre-back might be widely mocked for the frequency of his own goals, but the majority were down to last-ditch attempts at keeping the ball out of the net and inadvertently getting the last touch.
Distin joined City on their return to the Premier League.
Having taken Division One by storm in 2001-02, City set about strengthening to stay in the top flight at the second time of asking after promotion. In the summer of 2002, they added quality at both ends of the pitch—with Nicolas Anelka also moving to Maine Road, signing along with Distin from Paris Saint-Germain.
Dunne and Distin first played together the following October, in a 2-0 victory at Birmingham City. However, they weren't partnered in the way that they would be later on in their careers—the Irishman was still being used as a right back, while Steve Howey was Distin's colleague in the middle.
Keegan just didn't see Dunne as a central option. Even when both of the first-choice centre-backs limped out of a League Cup defeat at Wigan Athletic the week before the final Manchester derby at Maine Road, the manager picked Gerard Wiekens and Lucien Mettomo in the middle.
Neither had played together before, and Dunne was named again at right-back. It was in the next match, a defeat to Charlton Athletic, that the Irishman was moved into the middle.
City switched to a back three at times, with Dunne, Howey and Distin all playing centrally. It was only for the 2003-04 campaign, the club's first in their new stadium, where the partnership between the Irishman and the Frenchman began to flourish.
It was the early days for Dunne and Distin working together, and the team around them weren't helping, as City were often a soft touch in midfield and really struggled to win games. They weren't converting chances and only survived due to a couple of good results at the end of the season combined with Leeds United's woeful goal difference.
Over the course of the next few years, the pair became the first names on the teamsheet.
The two of them were fantastic in a 0-0 draw at Old Trafford in November 2004—United were so dominant that City fans came away feeling like they'd won the game.
Louis Saha, Cristiano Ronaldo, Alan Smith and a young Wayne Rooney didn't get too many chances thanks to a string of last-ditch tackles and superb organisation from the City rearguard. Smith was left so frustrated he was shown a second yellow card for a lunging challenge on Dunne, too.
As City became weaker in front of goal over the next two-and-a-half seasons, the partnership between their centre-halves began to flourish. Pearce's side spent a lot of games having to defend, and a tally of just 29 goals scored in 2006-07—joint-lowest in the league with bottom of the table Watford—became less of an issue.
It wasn't entertaining, but it earned City enough points to stay in the league.
The club had the second-best defensive record in the bottom half of the table and the eighth best in the whole top flight.
Given the resources invested into the team at that point, being safe from relegation a couple of weeks before the end of the campaign was probably the best the fans could have hoped for.
There were some notable displays that campaign, too. The pair of them were colossal in City's 1-0 victory over Arsenal at Eastlands, while winning runs over Christmas and Easter were pinned on resolute defensive performances—it was those two spells that really kept the club in the top flight.
Dunne and Distin will go down as one of the best centre-back pairings City have had, especially as they came in an era that was defined by an identity crisis and a fight for survival both on and off the pitch.
In the years since, only really Joleon Lescott and Vincent Kompany have built a similar foundation, as City have struggled to replace Roberto Mancini's title-winning defence of 2012.
Even now under Pep Guardiola, City's back four is chopping and changing, as injuries to the captain have left him in and out of the team. Nicolas Otamendi, Aleksandar Kolarov and new signing John Stones have all been mixed and matched, too.
While City's teams from 2003-2006 were nothing of the quality of the current squad, having a solid foundation at the back helped them to meet their aim of survival consistently.
As Guardiola's team struggles to convert chances, a central-defensive partnership could prove vital. The Catalan could do with adding another set of names to the list of duos like Dunne and Distin or Kompany and Lescott.
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