playSam TigheOct 16, 2026, 05:58 AM ETCloseSam is a writer, broadcaster and podcaster for ESPN. He will write on the Premier League, scouting and transfers.Multiple AuthorsOpen Extended ReactionsOn Sept. 1, 2008, the course of Premier League history changed. Manchester City were bought by the Abu Dhabi United Group (ADUG), led by Sheikh Mansour — an Emirati royal, the vice president of the United Arab Emirates, and one of the richest men in the world — for around £200 million.What followed over the next 18 years was a flood of cash — including over £3 billion spent on transfers — that propelled City to the top of the sport, allowing them to sign 123 players and sweep up trophy after trophy. Under ADUG ownership, the club has won 26 of them: eight Premier League titles, four FA Cups, seven Carabao Cups, four Community Shields, a UEFA Champions League, a Club World Cup and a Super Cup.But in September 2026, an independent commission ruled that the club was guilty of 114 charges in relation to breaches of the Premier League’s spending rules, while artificially inflating its sponsorship figures by more than £830 million in a nine-year period between 2009-18.
City maintain their innocence and have appealed the decision, but potential sanctions are being scoped out and could include expulsion from the league, a massive points deduction, or relegation.It begs the question: What would the sport have looked like if City had not spent in the way that they did? Who would have won the eight league titles? Where would the superstars (like Erling Haaland) they signed have gone instead? And what would manager Pep Guardiola’s career have looked like without a decade-long stint in Manchester?Here, we paint an alternate reality where City — still owned and backed by Sheikh Mansour — spent modestly (within the rules), never won the 2012 league title, never signed Haaland, and never appointed Guardiola.
Much like a Marvel movie set across the multiverse, we can speculate as to what might have transpired in this timeline.New Premier League winners are crownedWhat actually happened: The 2011 FA Cup success started a flood of league trophies as City won titles in 2011-12 (on goal difference), 2013-14 (on the final day of the season), 2017-18 (with a record 100 points and 19-point margin), 2018-19 (by a single point), 2020-21 (during a COVID-impacted season), 2021-22 (on the final day), 2022-23 (as part of treble including FA Cup and Champions League), and 2023-24 (the first club to win four consecutive English top-flight titles.)Alternate reality: In this timeline, City experience a much more mundane life. They don’t spend lavishly, they don’t destabilize their closest competitors by continually signing their players, so they don’t make the definitive leap to stardom. On the plus side, they also don’t fall into financial ruin … which was a genuine threat before the Abu Dhabi takeover.No titles for City: 2011-18One of the Premier League’s most iconic moments never happens. Sky Sports commentator Martin Tyler never screams this famous “Agüeroooooooo!” line when Sergio Agüero scores a 94th-minute winner against QPR to win the 2011-12 title, because Agüero never joins City for £35 million in 2011.
Here, City can’t use the preceding three years to spend hundreds of millions and assemble a title-winning team.Instead, Manchester United win the 2011-12 Premier League, rather than losing it on goal difference with 89 points, and Sir Alex Ferguson’s title count ends at 14 — not 13 — when he retires after winning another the following season. In 2013-14, Liverpool secure the title, not City, as Steven Gerrard’s slip against Chelsea makes no difference. Brendan Rodgers wins the Premier League, but the club still hires Jürgen Klopp in 2015, as Rodgers simply gets a bit more time before imploding and the German arrives.Chelsea sign several players (we’ll cover them in more detail later) who would have ended up at City — the likes of David Silva and Kyle Walker — so their two titles in the next three years under Jose Mourinho and then Antonio Conte, as well as the incredible 2015-16 title run of Leicester City (this multiverse is not cruel), remain unchanged.And what of City’s centurion season in 2017-18? That 100-point haul stands as a Premier League record and was sealed in the most dramatic of circumstances, with Gabriel Jesus scoring at the death on the final day to beat Southampton, but the team that achieved it was not compiled in this timeline, so it goes to Manchester United instead and Mourinho gets himself another medal.That brings us to the end of the period during which City have been charged.
However, without the successes between 2009-18, the club has no empire to continue to dominate from, so it changes the face of the next seven years too.The next seven years: 2019-26Klopp’s Liverpool win back-to-back titles in 2018-19 and 2019-20 — the one they actually won — and claim another in 2021-22.In the middle of that, Ole Gunnar Solskjaer leads Manchester United to a title, which changes the very nature of how he is perceived as a coach — though it’s fair to assume that the club’s struggles to replace the legendary Ferguson continue in the same vein, albeit with a few more titles, and he doesn’t last much longer.Arsenal get in on the act, too. Their torturous 2022-23 and 2023-24 seasons, in which they were narrowly beaten to the title by City twice, take on a very different inflection as they canter to victory and set up a dynasty of their own. (Stay tuned for who their manager is from 2021 onwards.)But if one thing has been proven in every multiverse, it’s that no matter how much money Chelsea spend on megastars, nothing can make them consistent. In this timeline, they’ll win a handful of cups and challenge much more strongly for the league, but the revolving door of managers means their star players never truly settle and drive them to another title after 2016-17.play1:25Olley: Man City’s titles will have an asterisk if guilty after appealCity’s rivals grow strongerWhat happened: Manchester City’s strategy to accelerate into the elite was to spend big in a relatively methodical way early on, but the key was to sign their competitors’ star players. From Arsenal, they took Emmanuel Adebayor (£25 million) and Kolo Touré (£16 million) in 2009, Samir Nasri (£24 million) and Gaël Clichy (£10 million) in 2011, and Bacary Sagna (free) in 2014.
From Everton they took Joleon Lescott (£22 million) in 2009, Jack Rodwell (£12 million) in 2012 and John Stones (£47.5 million) in 2016. From Aston Villa, they took Gareth Barry (£12 million) in 2009, James Milner (£18 million, plus Stephen Ireland) in 2010, and Fabian Delph (£8 million) in 2015. But there was another, really big one that sent shockwaves through Manchester and beyond. City brought in Argentina striker Carlos Tevez from West Ham United for £25.5 million on a weekly wage exceeding £200,000 per week — for context, this was huge in 2009 — and in the process took him away from Manchester United, who had signed him on loan for two years and had every intention of completing a permanent deal.All of this set City up to elbow their way into the elite, hampering other clubs in the process, and even spawning that famous “Welcome to Manchester” billboard for Tevez’s signing.Alternate reality: Tevez completes a permanent move to Manchester United in 2009, which stabilizes the club’s attack in the wake of Cristiano Ronaldo’s world-record £80 million move to Real Madrid the year before.
The Argentine continues to dovetail with Wayne Rooney for years, meaning Ferguson’s final years at the club are seen out with a bang and two more league titles before he retires in 2013.Arsenal’s barren run endsArsenal, meanwhile, avoid the talent drain to City and instead keep Adebayor, Nasri & Co. in north London. It’s not enough to convince Robin van Persie to stick around — he still joins Man United, leading to a s
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