User talk:Mancini's Sandbox/2010–11

The 2010–11 season is Manchester City Football Club's 109th season of football, its ninth consecutive season in the Premier League, and its fourteenth season in the Premier League since it was first created with Manchester City as one of the its original 22 founding member clubs. The team finished fifth in the previous season, thereby qualifying for an opportunity to compete in this season's Europa League. The club is managed by Roberto Mancini who was appointed as manager midway through the previous season.

Season review
In the summer transfer window, the club, one of the richest in the world since its 2008 takeover by the Abu Dhabi United Group, spent £126 million on players, including Jérôme Boateng from Hamburg, Yaya Touré from Barcelona, David Silva from Valencia, Aleksandar Kolarov from Lazio, Mario Balotelli from Internazionale, and James Milner from Aston Villa. Popular City midfielder Stephen Ireland was in turn transferred to Aston Villa as part of a player exchange agreement in the James Milner deal.

The team began this season's campaign well, collecting four out of a possible six points against "Top 7" opponents Tottenham Hotspur and Liverpool, which was three points more than City managed in the comparable fixtures last season. City then stuttered for a couple of games against Sunderland (away) and Blackburn Rovers (at home), bagging only a single home point out of the six despite completely dominating both games, with (according to manager Roberto Mancini) at least 25 missed chances in the Blackburn game alone. City got itself back on a winning track again with a 0–2 away win against Wigan Athletic, which was the first time the team had ever won at the DW Stadium, breaking what some supporters had labeled a jinx for this fixture.

After the previous season's run to the semi-final of the League Cup, the team's performance in that competition this season was very disappointing, with the Blues falling at the first hurdle, losing 2-1 to West Bromwich Albion in the third round tie played at The Hawthorns.

However, the team began its Europa League campaign in much better style, clocking up three back-to-back wins in its first three games. In the first leg 1-0 away victory over FC Timişoara in the play-off round, Mario Balotelli scored the single winning goal on his debut, but also received a serious knee injury that required surgery, putting him out of action for the next three months of the season. Balotelli was not the only one of City's new crop of high profile summer signings to fall victim to an early serious injury, with Jérôme Boateng missing out on the fitst six weeks of the new season due to a knee injury he picked up playing for Germany in an international friendly match against Denmark back in mid-August , while Aleksandar Kolarov seriously damaged his ankle ligaments in the opening match of the season against Tottenham Hotspur. The loss of Boateng and Kolarov - taken together with recent injuries to Micah Richards (hamstring), Wayne Bridge (thigh injury coming right on the back of a prolonged absence due to a cracked foot bone) and Joleon Lescott (groin) - meant that Roberto Mancini found himself without five of his eight main back four defenders going into City's home match against Chelsea, causing him to claim that he had a defensive injury crisis for that game, which nevertheless City still managed to win convincingly due to a stellar defensive performance from the back four (Dedryck Boyata, Kolo Touré, Vincent Kompany and Pablo Zabaleta) that Mancini was able to field.

Team kit
As for the previous season, this season's team kits are produced by Umbro with Etihad Airways as the shirt sponsor. Only the third team kit was retained from the previous season, although a new variant of this kit - utilizing white shorts and socks in place of the black shorts and socks - was added as the primary version of this kit. The main change to the home team kit was to the socks which reverted back to the classic full sky blue colour with maroon and white striped tops. The previous season's all-black away team kit was replaced by a new midnight blue strip sporting thin horizontal sky blue striping on the socks that the MCFC official web site (OWS) describes as “the dark side of the moon.”

The previous season's goalkeepers' strips were also retained, though a new all-black strip has been added to the collection for this season, to be used primarily with the home team kit. Last season's all-green home goalkeeper strip has now been moved over to the away and third team kits, although it is still used with the home team kit when the all-black strip is considered to be too close in color to the opposition's strip (e.g., Chelsea and Newcastle United). The gold-and-black goalkeeper strip that was used primarily with the away kit last season has now become the new alternate (third) choice strip for the stoppers. As can be determined from the foregoing, which of the three team kits these goalkeeper strips are actually used with is not a hard and fast rule since any of these strips can be swapped around (if necessary) in order to avoid kit clashes with the opponents' team strips or the opponents' goalkeeper strips, as well as avoiding clashes with the strips worn by the match officials.

Note that the terms "away" and "third" as applied to the team kits this season is somewhat of a misnomer since the "third team kit" (in both its variants) is being used in games much more often than the new "away team kit" - which means that the "away team kit" is essentially the "third team kit" and vice versa. On 2 February 2011 there was a minor "kit faux pas" when the Manchester City team wore its regular home team kit for its away fixture against Birmingham City at St Andrew's, a fixture that usually requires the visiting Manchester City team to use one of its alternative strips (in this case, its third team kit since the midnight blue away kit also represents a colour clash) as the primary home team colours of both sides combines a blue shirt with white shorts. No explanation has been forthcoming yet as to why this mix-up occurred (because as per which kits are to be worn in which fixtures is determined before the season even begins), nor why the referee, Kevin Friend, allowed two teams so similarly clad onto the pitch rather than insist that one of them first change its strip.



Kit usage
Numbers denote: "number of home games : number of away or neutral venue games" X indicates potential home fixtures where away and third team kits are usually never used

Table current as of end of 3 April 2011

Historical league performance
Prior to this season, the history of Manchester City's performance in the English football league hierarchy since the creation of the Premier League in 1992 is summarised by the following timeline chart – which commences with the last season (1991-92) of the old Football League First Division (from which the Premier League was formed).

Playing statistics
Appearances (Apps.) numbers are for appearances in competitive games only. ''Apps. numbers denote:'' "No. of games played (No. of games subbed off / No. of games subbed on)" Red card numbers denote: "No. of second yellow cards / No. of straight red cards." Numbers in parentheses represent red cards overturned for wrongful dismissal.

Table statistics current for games played up until the end of 20 March 2011

League Cup and FA Cup
Information current as of end of 3 April 2011

Premier League Manager of the Month award
Awarded monthly to the manager that was chosen by a panel assembled by the Premier League's sponsor

Etihad Player of the Month awards
Awarded to the player that receives the most votes in a poll conducted each month on the MCFC OWS

Tuttosport Golden Boy award
Since 2003 awarded annually by the Italian daily sports newspaper to the young player (on an initial short list of 40 'under 21' players) that receives the most votes from a panel consisting of 30 sports journalists selected from across the whole of Europe

Best Sodding Groundsmen of the Year award
Awarded annually at a meeting of the Institute of Groundsmanship organisation as a result of voting by professional football grounds management teams from the whole of the U.K.

Reserves &amp; Academy
This 'loan watch' report provides the latest progress update on most of the players listed above that are currently still out on loan at other clubs.

Player registration and competition eligibility
Starting in the 2010-11 season there will be new player registration requirements that must be met by every club playing in the English Premier League. Clicking on any of the topics listed below will access a brief overview of that topic. Overviews of the existing UEFA player registration regulations are also provided for the sake of comparison and because they also help provide a more thorough understanding of the actual implications for the Manchester City football club of both these sets of player eligibility requirements.

Squad status designation
Based on the UEFA and Premier League squad registration regulations described above each player that is currently a member of the Manchester City first team squad can be assigned a "Squad Status" attribute that designates his ability to satisfy those player registration requirements in any UEFA or Premier League competition in which Roberto Mancini may wish to select him to play. Such a Squad Status designation may only be one of the following:

Explanations and definitions of select terminology
The Squad Status and Player Eligibility codes defined below have been derived from information contained in the UEFA and Premier League rules and regulations (R&R) publications for the 2010-11 season as published on the official web sites of those respective football governing organizations.