When the punters in the Football Transfer Tavern think of Man City, all they think of is money, success and empty seats – but before all this was a time when City’s centre-forwards were as sharp as butter knife.
The club, at times, spent money it did not even have to purchase players expected to become the “next” someone when, in fact, they were really the next in the list of another horror story City fans were forced to endure.
Here at the Transfer Tavern we asked our City regulars who they felt were the worst front three in the history of the football club and no less than a dozen names were mentioned – all of whom could have made this unwanted list.
Are these the worst players to play for the club in recent memory? It’s difficult to argue against any of these three but undeniably some other names would have had a strong case for inclusion.
In the end, here are the three names our landlord choose to make the unwanted list…
Lee Bradbury
Bradbury became City’s record signing in 1997 when he was signed from Portsmouth after being dubbed the next Alan Shearer.
However, he was anything but near Alan Shearer and less than a year later he was sold to Crystal Palace.
The attacker scored just 10 goals for City and couldn’t prevent the club from being relegated.
Jo
Good grief. The name would send shivers down the spine of any Manchester City fans. When Mark Hughes convinced Manchester City to part with £19million in pre Middle-Eastern takeover times, City fans became giddy with excitement at signing this Brazilian forward from CSKA Moscow.
Joy soon turned to despair as Jo was absolutely disgraceful for the Blues. A return of 1 goal in 19 games forced City to loan their Brazilian asset to Everton just six months later.
Jo returned under Roberto Mancini and failed to score another league goal. Some players struggle to find form, and some don’t have anything going in their favour, but Jo was just literally useless.
Benardo Corradi
A striker who scores just one more league goal than the number of red cards he received is a worrying stat.
At at time when City would sign players on free transfers, the fact the club spent money on a striker got the Blues at the Transfer Tavern rather excited. That excitement was quickly dashed when he was sent-off on his debut against Chelsea.
Corradi scored a total of 3 league goals during the 2006/2007 for City before being shipped off by Sven Goran Eriksson a season later.
