Manchester City's Embarrassing Christmas: The Festive Season in the Bottom 3
Manchester City supporters aren’t easily embarrassed.
Down the years, they've developed a phrase to cover all eventualities. Whether they're being relegated as champions, losing games after hitting the woodwork five times, or holding the ball by the corner flag to preserve a result that wasn't enough to avoid relegation, the saying "typical City" sums it all up.
It became a defence mechanism to hide the shame; a go-to phrase that supporters wore as a bizarre badge of honour.
All of those events happened, too. In 1938, City were relegated from the top flight despite being champions—a feat that could be matched by Leicester City this season, though Manchester City fans will be hoping they stay up because there’s something perversely satisfying about their club being the only ones to have failed so badly.
Bolton Wanderers took a 1-0 victory from the City of Manchester Stadium in 2005, after the home side had hit the post or crossbar five times—six, if you count Antoine Sibierski’s header that struck the bar twice before dropping behind.
In 1996, City's players wrongly believed results elsewhere had saved them from relegation in the closing stages of their 2-2 draw with Liverpool, and they began to waste time by holding the ball by the corner flag. It was misinformation—their rivals were all drawing, too, meaning the result changed nothing and City finished in the bottom three.
But it's in the relegation zone where City fans have been most embarrassed in recent years. In 2008, supporters had their season filled with hope after a frankly horrible end to the campaign before.
Sven-Goran Eriksson had given some brief respite from the shocking performances of that era, but the end of his 2007-08 season saw a return to uninspiring football and poor results.
When it was announced the next September—under new boss Mark Hughes—that controversial owner Thaksin Shinawatra had sold the club to Sheikh Mansour and the Abu Dhabi United Group, there was sudden delirium.
City were dubbed the richest club in world football. They could hand blank cheques to anyone and everyone for whichever player they desired.
On that summer transfer deadline day in 2008, they snatched Real Madrid’s Robinho from under the noses of Chelsea—and were also reported to be throwing money around for the likes of Dimitar Berbatov or Fernando Torres, though they would later turn out to be unfounded.
It was all very exciting and had the supporters dreaming of a good season again. That’s why they were left red-faced when a 2-1 defeat at West Bromwich Albion late in December condemned their side to a Christmas Day in the relegation zone.
Despite having scored the second-most goals in the Premier League by that stage—31 in their 18 games, behind only second-placed Chelsea’s tally of 36—City just weren’t picking up enough points. They had conceded 27, while in comparison the Stamford Bridge side had let in just seven.
City had won only five times, beating West Ham United, Sunderland, Portsmouth, Stoke City and Arsenal. Three of those wins were in the first five games of the season. It was dour stuff and it was only getting worse. The success over the Gunners was their only one in a run of nine top-flight matches.
Robinho was scoring goals, but he couldn't drag the team to victories all on his own, and he wasn’t getting the support he needed from his team-mates. There was no fight in the side, and they were too easily rolled over by any opponent that showed a bit of character.
The poor form culminated in a home defeat to Everton in mid-December and reached the height of embarrassment when City travelled to West Brom four days before Christmas.
"Typical City," the fans said as they unwrapped their gifts on Christmas morning and chomped down their turkey and roast potatoes in the afternoon. Only City could have been given limitless finances and the opportunity to make an impression on the world, yet find themselves playing such a poor quality of football that they were sitting in the bottom three.
They wouldn't have been in a much better position, but even psychologically it would have been less embarrassing for supporters had Hughes' team been able to hang on at the Hawthorns. City had been 1-0 down after Luke Moore found the net in the second half but pulled level thanks to a minor miracle.
City had been awful, but when a long throw-in landed at the feet of substitute Felipe Caicedo inside the Albion box, the visitors looked like they'd stolen a point. The Ecuadorian backheeled an effort at goal, only to see it hit the post and bounce over the line after striking goalkeeper Scott Carson on the back.
A point at the Premier League's bottom club would have kept City out of the relegation zone at Christmas. But Roman Bednar's header in the second minute of stoppage time condemned the away side to defeat—he looped his effort over a stranded Joe Hart, when the young goalkeeper came for the cross and stopped when he realised he wasn't going to get there.
Four wins in their next six games removed any long-term relegation fears for Hughes, and by the start of February, City had climbed into the top half of the table. Their riches, though, weren't able to provide the turnaround the fans had been hoping for—the winter transfer window saw the arrival of Wayne Bridge, Craig Bellamy, Nigel de Jong and Shay Given.
They weren't the superstars many were anticipating—and the chase for AC Milan's Kaka proved unsuccessful, despite the club offering to stump up £100 million for the deal. Garry Cook, then-City executive chairman, claimed the Italian club had "bottled it," per BBC Sport.
The team's UEFA Cup performance that year was perhaps what saved the manager from the sack, given some of the records City held. Having been in the bottom three at Christmas, they also won just two away matches all season; they lost 3-0 at home to Championship strugglers Nottingham Forest in the FA Cup; and, despite investment, they finished lower than they did in the campaign before.
| 2007-08 | 4th |
| 2008-09 | 18th |
| 2009-10 | 6th |
| 2010-11 | 3rd |
| 2011-12 | 1st |
| 2012-13 | 2nd |
| 2013-14 | 3rd |
| 2014-15 | 2nd |
| 2015-16 | 3rd |
The only saving grace was making the quarter-finals of the European competition, eventually losing out to Hamburg 4-3 on aggregate.
While being seven points off the leaders on Christmas Day this season isn't much to write home about, there is nothing shameful about going into the festive period in third place. City did that in 2013-14 and went on to win the title, after all.
In fact, since being in the relegation zone for Christmas in 2008, City have only once been outside the top three at this stage of the season—in 2009-10, the season in which Hughes suffered a string of Premier League draws through the autumn before being sacked ahead of the Boxing Day game.
The Welshman has the honour of being the only City manager to have taken his side into the bottom three for the festive period—something that didn’t even happen under Alan Ball and Joe Royle in the two seasons they were relegated from the top flight—and he did it while his side were the richest club in the world.
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