2008–09 Manchester City F.C. season
The 2008–09 season was Manchester City Football Club's seventh consecutive season playing in the Premier League, the top division of English football, and its twelfth season since the Premier League was first created with Manchester City as one of its original 22 founding member clubs. Overall, it was the team's 117th season playing in a division of English football, the majority of which have been spent in the top-flight.
Season review
The club started the season under the private ownership of UK Sports Investments Limited, a company controlled by former Thailand prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra, but it was announced on the morning of Monday 1 September 2008 that Abu Dhabi-based Abu Dhabi United Group Investment and Development Limited had completed a takeover of Manchester City in a deal worth a reported £200 million. This transaction made HH Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan the new owner of the club, although initially he kept a very low profile and Dr. Sulaiman Al-Fahim, who was the board member of ADUG that had presided over the signing of the deal at the Emirates Palace Hotel, was widely believed to be the new owner and potential chairman of the club. However, before the takeover was finally completed, wealthy backer Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan became more prominent and it was eventually made clear that Al-Fahim would not be joining the board at Manchester City, with Khaldoon Al Mubarak being appointed as the club's new chairman.The last-minute takeover of the club on transfer "deadline-day" was further capped, mere minutes before the summer transfer window closed, with the news that the club had beaten Chelsea to the signing of Robinho from Real Madrid for a British record transfer fee of £32.5 million.
Kit
Supplier: Le Coq Sportif / Sponsor: Thomas CookKit information
For this season the shirt sponsor for all of the club's kits continued to be the previous season's sponsor, Thomas Cook, while the team kits were produced by the previous season's supplier, Le Coq Sportif. The home and away kits were unveiled by the club on 27 June 2008, with the new away kit representing a more modern rendition of the club's highly popular red and black striped shirts and black shorts that had first been introduced as a club kit by Malcolm Allison back in 1968 in imitation of A.C. Milan's classic colors. A striking new "blaze orange"/navy third kit completed the collection of kits, while the team's main home strip shed the previous season's thin white vertical stripes from the shirts and returned to the solid sky blue shirts that are more traditionally associated with the team. As well as all three of the team kits being new this season, the previous season's two-tone green goalkeeper strip was also replaced with two new strips for the goalkeepers. The main goalkeeper strip, intended primarily for use with the home team colours, sported an all gold shirt trimmed with black on the shoulders and sides with matching all black shorts and socks, whilst the second mint-green strip, with the shirts similarly trimmed in black, was introduced to supplement it on both home and away fixtures.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 of the old Football League First Division.ImageSize = width:765 height:75
PlotArea = left:12 right:12 bottom:30 top:10
TimeAxis = orientation:horizontal format:yyyy
DateFormat = dd/mm/yyyy
Period = from:01/07/1991 till:01/07/2008
ScaleMajor = unit:year increment:1 start:1992
Colors =
id:fdm value:rgb
id:plm value:rgb
id:plr value:rgb
id:d1p value:rgb
id:d1p value:rgb
id:d1m value:rgb
id:d1r value:rgb
id:d2p value:rgb
id:pro value:rgb
id:rel value:rgb
PlotData=
bar:Position width:18 color:white align:center
from:01/07/1991 till:01/07/1992 Shift: text:5
from:01/07/1992 till:01/07/1993 shift: text:9
from:01/07/1993 till:01/07/1994 shift: text:16
from:01/07/1994 till:01/07/1995 shift: text:17
from:01/07/1995 till:01/07/1996 shift: text:18
from:01/07/1996 till:01/07/1997 shift: text:14
from:01/07/1997 till:01/07/1998 shift: text:22
from:01/07/1998 till:01/07/1999 shift: text:3
from:01/07/1999 till:01/07/2000 shift: text:2
from:01/07/2000 till:01/07/2001 shift: text:18
from:01/07/2001 till:01/07/2002 shift: text:1
from:01/07/2002 till:01/07/2003 shift: text:9
from:01/07/2003 till:01/07/2004 shift: text:16
from:01/07/2004 till:01/07/2005 shift: text:8
from:01/07/2005 till:01/07/2006 shift: text:15
from:01/07/2006 till:01/07/2007 shift: text:14
from:01/07/2007 till:01/07/2008 shift: text:9
from:01/07/1991 till:01/07/1992 color:fdm shift: text: "First Div."
from:01/07/1992 till:01/07/1995 color:plm shift: text: "Premier League"
from:01/07/1995 till:01/07/1996 color:plr shift:
from:01/07/1996 till:01/07/1997 color:d1m shift: text: "Division 1"
from:01/07/1997 till:01/07/1998 color:d1r shift:
from:01/07/1998 till:01/07/1999 color:d2p shift: text: "Div. 2"
from:01/07/1999 till:01/07/2000 color:d1p shift: text: "Div. 1"
from:01/07/2000 till:01/07/2001 color:plr shift: text: "PL"
from:01/07/2001 till:01/07/2002 color:d1p shift: text: "Div. 1"
from:01/07/2002 till:01/07/2008 color:plm shift: text: "Premier League"
Friendly games
Pre-season
Thomas Cook Trophy
Competitive games
Premier League
Position in final standings
Results summary
Points breakdown
Points at home: 39Points away from home: 11
Points against "Big Four" teams: 4
Points against promoted teams: 10
Biggest & smallest
Biggest home win: 6–0 vs. Portsmouth, 21 September 2008Biggest home defeats: 1–3 vs. Chelsea, 13 September 2008 & vs. Fulham, 12 April 2009
Biggest away win: 0–3 vs. Sunderland, 31 August 2008
Biggest away defeats: 4–2 vs. Aston Villa, 17 August 2008
2–0 vs. Middlesbrough, 29 October 2008 & vs. Bolton Wanderers, 2 November 2008
& vs. Portsmouth, 14 February 2009 & vs. Arsenal, 4 April 2009
& vs. Manchester United, 10 May 2009
Biggest home attendance: 47,331 vs. Chelsea, 13 September 2008
Smallest home attendance: 36,635 vs. West Ham United, 24 August 2008
Biggest away attendance: 75,464 vs. Manchester United, 10 May 2009
Smallest away attendance: 18,214 vs. Wigan Athletic, 28 September 2008
Results by round
Individual match reports
UEFA Cup
Qualifying phase
First qualifying round
Second qualifying round
First round
Group phase
| Group A standings | Pld | W | D | L | GF | GA | GD | Pts |
 Manchester City | 4 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 6 | 5 | +1 | 7 |
 Twente | 4 | 2 | 0 | 2 | 5 | 8 | −3 | 6 |
 Paris Saint-Germain | 4 | 1 | 2 | 1 | 7 | 5 | +2 | 5 |
 Racing Santander | 4 | 1 | 2 | 1 | 6 | 5 | +1 | 5 |
 Schalke 04 | 4 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 5 | 6 | −1 | 4 |
| Group A results | MC | PSG | RdS | S04 | FCT |
| Manchester City | – | 0–0 | – | – | 3–2 |
| Paris Saint-Germain | – | – | 2–2 | – | 4–0 |
| Racing Santander | 3–1 | – | – | 1–1 | – |
| Schalke 04 | 0–2 | 3–1 | – | – | – |
| FC Twente | – | – | 1–0 | 2–1 | – |
Final phase
Round of 32
Round of 16
Quarter-final
League Cup
Second round
FA Cup
Third round
Playing statistics
Starting XI
Last updated: 21 August 2011Source: [|Appearance] and [|Starting Formations].
Only competitive matches.
Using the most used [|Starting Formation].
Sorted by position on pitch.
Appearances numbers are for appearances in competitive games only
Apps. numbers denote: "Total no. of games played "
Red card numbers denote: "No. of second yellow cards / No. of straight red cards"
Yellow and red cards for the 2 domestic cups only accounted for in the TOTALS columns
*** indicates 3-match ban for violent conduct towards Rory Delap in PL game against Stoke City at the Britannia Stadium on 31 January 2009
Information current as of 24 May 2009
Stephen Ireland
Alex Tchuimeni-Nimely
Robinho
Dedryck Boyata
Pablo Zabaleta
Ryan McGivern
Craig Bellamy
Vladimír Weiss