Manchester City don’t often get things wrong in the transfer window, but they’ve made a couple of big errors in recent years.
Indeed, City made a massive mistake when selling Morgan Rogers a couple of years ago, while letting Romeo Lavia leave was also a bit of an error.
However, perhaps City’s biggest mistake in recent times was letting Cole Palmer join Chelsea for just £40m.
Pep Guardiola must regret letting Palmer go as the England international has since become a world-class player.
Interestingly, this isn’t the first time City made this sort of mistake.
Indeed, back in 2009, City let another of their young academy stars leave to join Chelsea, and that decision ultimately backfired.
Daniel Sturridge was the original Cole Palmer at Man City
Cast your mind back to the late 2000s and there was an element of excitement in the air around Manchester City.
The Abu Dhabi takeover had just gone through, and there was a feeling that City were about to transform into a top side.
Big signings arrived such as Emmanuel Adebayor, Gareth Barry, Joleon Lescott and David Silva, but the academy was somewhat neglected.
Michael Johnson was tipped for big things, but he never made it at City, while Pablo Zabaleta began to block Micah Richards’ path into the first-team too.
Kieran Trippier would also slip through the net, but perhaps the most talented player that City mishandled at this time was Daniel Sturridge.
Much like Palmer, Sturridge would leave City in 2009 to sign for Chelsea, and while he didn’t quiet make his mark at Stamford Bridge, once he joined Liverpool a few years later, he would become a superstar.
Jurgen Klopp would eventually call Sturridge ‘brilliant’, via Sky Sports, and it’s easy to understand why as Sturridge would score tons of goals for Liverpool while also becoming England’s first-choice striker for a period.
Daniel Sturridge stats after leaving Manchester City
Daniel Sturridge would become a bona fide Premier League star after leaving Manchester City, as his stats for Liverpool and Chelsea show.
| Daniel Sturridge stats post-Manchester City | Games | Goals | Assists | Minutes played | Minutes per goal contribution |
| Liverpool | 160 | 68 | 20 | 9,348 | 106 |
| Chelsea | 96 | 24 | 6 | 4,569 | 152 |
Sturridge would eventually have injury problems that hampered his development, but, who knows? Perhaps if he’d stayed at City, he’d have been able to be managed more carefully.
Let’s not forget, in the early-to-mid 2010s, Manchester City were going barmy when it came to signing strikers, often having four or five strikers in their team at once, spending millions upon millions on third or fourth choice centre-forwards.
| Manchester City striker signings after Daniel Sturridge left | Fee |
| Carlos Tevez | £30m |
| Emmanuel Adebayor | £25m |
| Roque Santa Cruz | £18m |
| Edin Dzeko | £27m |
| Mario Balotelli | £24m |
| Sergio Aguero | £32m |
| Stefan Jovetic | £25m |
| Alvaro Negredo | £22m |
| Wilfried Bony | £28m |
| Total spent | £231m |
City could’ve saved tons of cash if they’d kept hold of Sturridge, while Sturridge probably could’ve managed his body better if he’d been able to rotate with the likes of Sergio Aguero, Edin Dzeko and Carlos Tevez rather than being perhaps the 2nd-most important player at Liverpool for a period at Anfield.
Sergio Aguero is arguably City’s best-ever player, so Sturridge wouldn’t have had to have carried such a massive workload as he did at Liverpool in the post-Suarez era, where most of his injuries occurred.
Manchester City made an error when they sold Cole Palmer to Chelsea, but they made an equally bad mistake when they let Sturridge go in 2009.
