2007–08 Manchester City F.C. season

Manchester City

2007-08 season
Owner & chairman	Thaksin Shinawatra
Manager	Sven-Göran Eriksson
Stadium	City of Manchester Stadium
Premier League	9th
FA Cup	Fourth round
League Cup	Fifth round
Top goalscorer	League: Elano (8) All: Elano (10)
Highest home attendance	47,321 (vs. Liverpool, 30 December 2007)
Lowest home attendance	20,938 (vs. Norwich City, 25 September 2007)
Average home league attendance	42,126
Home colours Away colours Third colours
← 2006-07 2008-09 →

The 2007–08 season was Manchester City Football Club's sixth consecutive season playing in the Premier League, the top division of English football, and its 11th season since the Premier League was first created, with Manchester City as one of the its original 22 founding member clubs. Overall, it was the team's 116th season playing in a division of English football, most of which have been spent in the top flight.

Season review

The season started with a new owner in Thaksin Shinawatra and his newly appointed manager, Sven-Göran Eriksson. After spending three of the four previous Premier League seasons finishing in low mid-table positions (i.e., two to four places above the relegation zone), the Manchester City team was badly in need of an influx of new blood if it was to avoid a similar fate, or worse, in the upcoming season. Consequently, the newly infused funds from the club's wealthy Thai owner came at quite a fortuitous time for the team, and Eriksson was very active in the summer transfer market as he spent approximately £30 million adding eight relatively high-profile players to the City first team squad.

As a consequence of this mini spending spree Manchester City started the new season strongly and spent a large portion of it occupying one of the top five positions in the Premier League table. Unfortunately, the strong results of the first two thirds of the season were not sustained in the final third and the team ultimately slipped down the rankings to finish the season in ninth place. This loss of form in the final months also led to Shinawatra summarily sacking Eriksson, a decision that was received with mixed emotions by the Manchester City supporters since both characters had achieved the status of "white knights" in their eyes for their respective financial and managerial contributions to the transformation of the club.^[1] Two days after his end-of-season dismissal, on 2 June 2008 Eriksson was replaced by Mark Hughes.^[2]

This season also saw Manchester City gain entry into the next season's UEFA Cup competition by finishing sixth in the English "Fair Play" rankings (with the five teams ranked above City having already qualified for European competition).

Team kit

Supplier: Le Coq Sportif / Sponsor: Thomas Cook

Home

Home alt

Memorial

Away

Away alt.

Third

Third alt.

Third alt. 2

Goalkeeper 1

Goalkeeper 2

Goalkeeper 3

Kit description

The start of the 2007–08 Premier League campaign saw a number of changes for Manchester City, the most notable being the hiring of former England manager Sven-Göran Eriksson, while a somewhat less prominent change for the club saw the termination of Reebok as the team's kit supplier (for the four previous seasons) with the French sportswear manufacturer, Le Coq Sportif, now resuming this role once again. The shirt sponsor continued to be Thomas Cook, although the travel company had undergone a name change during the close season after its announced merger with MyTravel Group in June 2007, with the newly merged company now being called Thomas Cook Group.

The switch to a new kit supplier resulted in three new team kits for this season. The new home kit consisted of a return to a full sky blue shirt, but now with vertical white pin stripes on the body (but not the sleeves and shoulders) together with matching solid sky blue socks and the traditional all white shorts. The shirt sported a Le Coq Sportif logo on the upper portion of both sleeves with the Manchester City crest in the centre of the chest above the Thomas Cook logo, while the City crest was also repeated at the base of the right leg on the shorts.

The new away kit - a striking solid purple colour but sporting the same vertical white pin stripes on the body of the shirt as the home kit plus all the same kit supplier, sponsorship and club crest logos - was possibly a throwback to the classic maroon and thin white striped shirts that had been the club's one-time strip created for its appearance at Wembley in the 1956 FA Cup Final against Birmingham City. In comparison to the new home and away kits, the new third kit consisted of a relatively conservative all white shirt and socks with solid sky blue shorts, with the white shirt sporting a thin sky blue diagonal sash across the front of the left shoulder. New goalkeeper strips, a two-tone green (solid light green shirt plus solid dark green shorts and socks) and an all-grey change, were introduced for this season.

On 10 February 2008, during the club's local derby game against Manchester United, the City team played in a one-off special kit to mark the 50-year memorial of the Munich air disaster. This kit was devoid of the pinstripes, contained no kit supplier or sponsorship logos and had a black ribbon on the right shoulder bearing "1958–2008", with "Manchester remembers" written underneath.^[3]

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).

Friendly games

Pre-season

Thomas Cook Trophy

Post-season

Competitive games

Premier League

Position in final standings

Pos	Team	Pld	W	D	L	GF	GA	GD	Pts
6	Aston Villa !Aston Villa	38	17	13	8	66	61	+5	64
7	Blackburn Rovers !Blackburn Rovers	38	15	13	10	50	48	+2	58
8	Portsmouth !Portsmouth	38	16	9	13	48	40	+8	57
9	Manchester City !Manchester City	38	15	10	13	45	53	−8	55
10	West Ham United !West Ham United	38	13	10	15	42	50	−8	49

Updated to games played on 11 May 2008 (end of season).
Source: Premier League 2007-08
Rules for classification: 1) points; 2) goal difference; 3) number of goals scored
(C) = Champion; (R) = Relegated; (P) = Promoted; (E) = Eliminated; (O) = Play-off winner; (A) = Advances to a further round.
Only applicable when the season is not finished:
(Q) = Qualified to the phase of tournament indicated; (TQ) = Qualified to tournament, but not yet to the particular phase indicated; (RQ) = Qualified to the relegation tournament indicated; (DQ) = Disqualified from tournament.

Results summary

Overall								Home						Away
Pld	W	D	L	GF	GA	GD	Pts	W	D	L	GF	GA	GD	W	D	L	GF	GA	GD
38	15	10	13	45	53	−8	55	11	4	4	28	20	+8	4	6	9	17	33	−16

Last updated: 11 May 2008 (end of season).
Source: Premier League results 2007-08

Results by round

Round	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	13	14	15	16	17	18	19	20	21	22	23	24	25	26	27	28	29	30	31	32	33	34	35	36	37	38
Ground	A	H	H	A	A	H	A	H	H	H	A	H	A	H	A	A	H	A	H	H	A	A	H	A	H	A	H	H	A	H	A	A	H	A	H	H	A	A
Result	W	W	W	L	L	W	D	W	W	W	L	W	D	W	D	L	W	D	D	D	W	L	D	D	L	W	L	D	L	W	D	L	L	W	W	L	L	L

Last updated: 11 May 2008.
Source: Premier League results 2007-08
Ground: A = Away; H = Home. Result: D = Draw; L = Loss; W = Win; P = Postponed.

Individual match reports

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League Cup

Second round

Third round

Fourth round

Fifth Round

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FA Cup

Third round

Third Round replay

Fourth round

Playing statistics

Starting XI