2006–07 Manchester City F.C. season
The 2006–07 season was Manchester City Football Club's fifth consecutive season playing in the FA Premier League, the top division of English football, and its tenth 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 115th season playing in a division of English football, most of which have been spent in the top flight.
Season review
The 2006–07 season proved tough for club which skirmished with relegation from the Premier League and ended up finishing in 14th position. The club were again eliminated from the League Cup by a League One team, this time by Chesterfield early on in the season. Ben Thatcher's elbow challenge on Pedro Mendes whilst playing Portsmouth shocked many – a challenge which prompted City to take unprecedented action and banned Thatcher for six matches by the club and a six weeks fine. Pearce called the challenge "indefensible" and the Football Association banned Thatcher for a further eight matches. The side also scored just ten goals at home in the league, and none after New Years Day in 2007, a record low in top-flight English football.In December 2006, the club issued a statement regarding a possible takeover, and on 21 June, the Manchester City board accepted an £81.6 million offer for the club from Thaksin Shinawatra. One of his first moves was to schedule a press conference to announce former-England manager Sven-Göran Eriksson as his new manager – Eriksson's first job since leaving international duty.
Team kit
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, Reebok.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:675 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:01/07/2006
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:01/07/1991 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:01/07/2006 color:plm shift: text: "Premier League"
Friendly games
This season not all of the team's friendly games were played during the preparatory run-in to the official start of the new league campaign, with a couple of friendly games taking place during the course of the active season. The first of these games was perhaps just a "belated pre-season friendly" that was played with the season still only nine days old, while the other one against Blackpool in February was more of a mutually arranged scrimmage behind closed doors, with one of its intended purposes being to provide a "friendly competitive" tryout for the 28-year-old Belgian international striker, Émile Mpenza, who at the time the Manchester club was considering signing. This impromptu scrimmage served as a key part of Mpenza's brief trial with City and saw him perform well enough, with his scoring of the second goal in the 3–0 win, that he was subsequently signed by City two days later. The extemporaneous Valentine's Day friendly also gave some City players in need of match fitness, such as Didi Hamann and Stephen Jordan, a chance to get a full 90 minutes of play under their belts.Pre-season
Thomas Cook Trophy
Mid-season
Competitive games
Premier League
Position in final standings
Results summary
Points breakdown
Points at home: 21Points away from home: 21
Points against "Big Four" teams: 4
Points against promoted teams: 6
Biggest & smallest
Biggest home wins: 3–1 vs. Fulham, 18 November 20062–0 vs. West Ham United, 23 September 2006
Biggest home defeat: 0–3 vs. Blackburn Rovers, 20 January 2007
Biggest away wins: 1–3 vs. Aston Villa, 29 November 2006 & vs. Fulham, 9 April 2007
0–2 vs. Middlesbrough, 17 March 2007
Biggest away defeat: 4–0 vs. Wigan Athletic, 21 October 2006
Biggest home attendance: 47,244 vs. Manchester United, 5 May 2007
Smallest home attendance: 35,776 vs. Fulham, 18 November 2006
Biggest away attendance: 75,858 vs. Manchester United, 9 December 2006
Smallest away attendance: 16,235 vs. Wigan Athletic, 21 October 2006
Results by round
Individual match reports
League Cup
FA Cup
First-team squad
Left club during season
Reserve squad
Statistics
Appearances and goals
! colspan=14 style=background:#dcdcdc; text-align:center| Goalkeepers! colspan=14 style=background:#dcdcdc; text-align:center| Defenders
! colspan=14 style=background:#dcdcdc; text-align:center| Midfielders
! colspan=14 style=background:#dcdcdc; text-align:center| Forwards
! colspan=14 style=background:#dcdcdc; text-align:center| Players transferred out during the season