The most famous single moment in Premier League history came 10 years ago when Sergio Aguero collected a pass from Mario Balotelli and smashed a shot past Paddy Kenny.
“AGUERRROOOO” followed from Martin Tyler as the Manchester City striker ripped off his shirt, twirled it around his head and charged around the pitch in pure elation. Aguero’s clutch injury-time goal meant City had successfully come from 2-1 down to beat QPR 3-2 and win the Premier League title in the most dramatic of circumstances imaginable.
Despite seeing Joey Barton sent off in the 55th minute, QPR held the lead until the 92nd minute thanks to second-half goals from Djibril Cisse and Jamie Mackie. Edin Dzeko’s header brought City level, but Roberto Mancini’s side needed to win to beat Manchester United to the title. Cue the goal most fans – let alone Man City supporters – have etched into their memory.
Aguero’s goal sealed City’s first league title since 1968 and ushered in an era of dominance for the club under the ownership of Sheikh Mansour. Unsurprisingly, 10 years on, none of the players behind their first Premier League title win are still at the club. So what did happen to the starting XI from that game on May 13, 2012? Allow Mirror Football to tell you.
Joe Hart
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Hart spent 12 years at Man City and helped the club win two Premier League titles, two League Cups and the FA Cup across 348 appearances. During the latter stages of his Man City career, he was also England’s first-choice goalkeeper, but his career turned in 2016 when Pep Guardiola became the club’s manager.
Guardiola held a two-hour conversation with Hart which effectively ended his City career. Claudio Bravo came in that summer before Ederson arrived the following year to give Guardiola what he wanted. Hart went out on loan to Torino and West Ham before joining Burnley on a permanent contract in 2018. Now 35, he is with Celtic, where he has helped win the Scottish Premiership and League Cup.
Pablo Zabaleta
Zabaleta is remembered as a club legend at City, where he spent nine years and made 333 appearances. It was Zabaleta who opened the scoring against QPR that day – just one of 12 goals altogether for the club – and he stayed put right up until 2017, when he moved to West Ham. The 37-year-old right-back called time on an 18-year career in 2020 and has been working on his coaching badges ever since.
Vincent Kompany
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VIRGINIE LEFOUR/Getty Images)
Kompany was the undisputed leader of Man City’s first all-conquering side. The Belgian centre-back was captain and the rock at the heart of the defence. He made 359 appearances for the club between 2008 and 2019, winning four Premier League titles, four League Cups and two FA Cups. He left for Anderlecht to become player-coach and, having given up playing, is now just the manager of the Belgian side.
Joleon Lescott
Lescott was one of Kompany’s most trusted centre-back partners and played for City between 2009 and 2014. After leaving City, he moved back to the West Midlands to join West Brom, before moving to Aston Villa a year later. He concluded his career with brief spells at AEK Athens and Sunderland and retired in 2017. Lescott is now a regular pundit and is involved in coaching with England Under-21s.
Gael Clichy
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Clichy is best known for his eight years with Arsenal, but the French left-back also spent six years at the Etihad Stadium with City. He left in 2017 for Istanbul Basaksehir, where he won the Super Lig title in 2019/20. Aged 36, he is still playing for Swiss side Servette, whom he joined two years ago. He recently attended an event to mark 10 years since the Aguero goal and made headlines after being hit by a pint of beer which was thrown at him.
Samir Nasri
Nasri played for Man City between 2011 and 2017. He helped win two Premier League titles before leaving for Antalyaspor following a loan spell with Sevilla. The mercurial Frenchman has also played for West Ham and Kompany’s Anderlecht, but his post-City career is most notable for the infamous “Drip Doctors” story . In February 2018 Nasri received an initial six-month ban, which was later increased by a year, after getting an intravenous drip of 500 millilitres at a clinic in Los Angeles. When he retired in September 2021, Nasri opened up on the incident. “An episode hurt me very badly and changed my relationship with football: my suspension,” Nasri told Le Journal du Dimanche .”I found that more than unfair. I had not taken any doping products. It was just an injection of vitamins because I was sick. It cut me off in my tracks.”
Yaya Toure
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Igor Kralj/Pixsell/Getty Images)
Toure is another of Man City’s Premier League legends. The Ivory Coast midfielder was the driving force behind their success under Mancini’s management. He could do it all. Toure spent eight years with City, providing fans with numerous great memories – and one insanely catchy chant.
In 2018 he left for Olympiacos and later spent time with Chinese side Qingdao Huanghai before retiring in January 2020. Now 39, has dipped his toe into coaching, serving as assistant manager at Ukrainian side Olimpik Donetsk and Russian team Akhmat Grozny.
Gareth Barry
A Premier League stalwart. Barry holds the record for the most appearances in the competition, with 653. He spent his entire career in the top-flight, with Aston Villa, Man City, Everton and West Brom before calling it a day in 2020. He made the headlines in November 2021 after being charged by the Football Association over alleged breaches of intermediary regulations related to “the ownership and/or funding of Swindon Town FC”.
David Silva
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Alongside the likes of Aguero, Kompany and Toure as one of the club’s greatest ever modern players. Silva spent 10 years with Man City up until 2020, making a colossal 436 appearances across all competitions. He contributed 77 goals and 140 assists in that time, with his magic feet and eye for a pass wowing fans. The Spaniard left for Real Sociedad in 2020, where he helped the club win the Copa del Rey.
Carlos Tevez
Tevez made the rare and controversial move from Manchester United to Man City in 2009. He scored 73 times in 148 appearances for the club before moving to Juventus in 2013. The diminutive striker went on to play for Boca Juniors and cash-rice Shanghai Shenhua before calling time on his glittering and goal-filled playing career last summer.
Sergio Aguero
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Manchester City FC via Getty Images)
His most famous goal against QPR was one of just 260 goals for Man City in 390 appearances. Aguero is so loved at City that they erected a statue to him earlier this month and he will go down in both club and league history as an all-time great. The Argentine left for Barcelona when his contract expired last summer but sadly had to call an end to his career aged just 33 following the identification of a heart condition.
Substitutes
Costel Pantilimon – The back-up goalkeeper wasn’t needed at all in the league that season. He went on to feature for Sunderland, Watford and Nottingham Forest and Denizlispor in Turkey.
Micah Richards – Was a regular in the title-winning season. Was loaned to Fiorentina before joining Aston Villa in 2015 where injuries stalled his career. Now a well-known pundit.
Aleksandar Kolorov – The Serbian left-back stayed with City until 2017, when he joined Roma. Now 36 years old and still going with Inter Milan.
James Milner – Mr Reliable left for Liverpool in 2015, where he has continued to excel across a variety of positions.
Nigel de Jong – The Dutchman left City that summer and turned out for AC Milan, La Galaxy, Galatasaray, Mainz, Al Ahli and Al-Shahaniya since. Now on punditry duty for beIN Sports.
Mario Balotelli – His only Man City assist came for Aguero that day. Has led a nomadic existence since, playing for AC Milan, Liverpool, Nice, Marseille, Brescia and Monza.
Edin Dzeko – The Bosnian striker scored the crucial second goal vs QPR. Like Kolorov, he left for Roma before winding up at Inter Milan.
Squad members
Adam Johnson – After two years at City Johnson would leave for a move to hometown club Sunderland that summer, and he quickly became a regular for the Black Cats having also picked up 12 England caps. In March 2015 he was arrested and charged over sexual activity with a girl, 15, although he continued to play during bail. A year later Johnson was found guilty and sentenced to six years in prison. He would serve half his sentence before being released in 2019.
Stefan Savic – The Montenegrin would leave City after one season that summer, moving on Fiorentina and then Atletico Madrid, where he won the Europa League and then La Liga. Last month he riled up City fans with his behaviour during the Champions League quarter-final at the Wanda Metropolitano, where he thrust his head toward Raheem Sterling and grabbed Jack Grealish. A pent-up Liam Gallagher tweeted “your dead” to Savic in the aftermath, but soon apologised.
Wayne Bridge – Injuries and the signing of Clichy had squeezed Bridge out of the side by the start of 2011-12, and after just one appearance that season he joined West Ham on loan before further spells at Sunderland and Brighton, then a transfer to Reading. After retiring in the summer of 2014, the 36-times capped England international married The Saturdays signer Frankie Sandford, with whom he now had two children. Bridge was part of the 2016 series of I’m a Celebrity… Get Me Out of Here on ITV, and in 2019 he won a celebrity series of SAS: Who Dares Wins on Channel 4.
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