Manchester City travel to St James’ Park to face Newcastle United in the Carabao Cup on Wednesday night – a stadium which has previously played host to a memorable game for the Citizens.
Back in that iconic 2011/12 campaign, Roberto Mancini took his title contenders to Tyneside, where nothing but a win would be enough as Manchester United breathed down Manchester City’s neck.
As Pep Guardiola now prepares to take his treble winners back to St James’ Park, let’s have a look at the Manchester City starting XI from that memorable day back in May 2012…
Newcastle United 0-2 Manchester City
Well, Manchester City fans will surely remember this day.
A brace from Yaya Toure handed the Citizens a 2-0 win over Alan Pardew’s Magpies, and put Mancini’s side in a position to win their first Premier League title with victory over QPR at the Etihad Stadium on the final day.
Sounds easy enough, right? As we all now know, it did not turn out to be as simple as it sounded at the time – fortunately, Sergio Aguero saved Manchester City from complete and utter heartbreak.
A number of Manchester City cult heroes started this hugely important win over Newcastle United, including Vincent Kompany, Joe Hart and Pablo Zabaleta, while Carlos Tevez led the line having won back the trust of Mancini, following his mid-season sabbatical.
You can see the entire starting XI from Manchester City’s 37th Premier League clash of that famous 2011/12 campaign below.
The unsung Gael Clichy can be seen at left-back, with the Frenchman actually providing the assist for Toure’s second goal which sealed all three points.
It was Aguero who assisted the Ivorian’s first strike in the 70th minute.
The pair played a delicate one-two on the edge of Newcastle United’s box, before Toure superbly curled the ball beyond Tim Krul and into the bottom right corner.
Manchester City’s match winner was certainly trying everything he could to force the issue – as WhoScored shows, Toure had five shots, more than any of his teammates, while also registering four key passes.
Of course, a lot has changed at Manchester City nowadays – most of the XI who started this game have actually retired.
Kompany is even in charge of Burnley, while Toure is Assistant Manager of Standard Liège.
Despite this clash taking place more than a decade ago, these eleven players hold a special place in the hearts of Manchester City fans, after guiding the Citizens to their first ever Premier League title.
