The Middle Man: who is the most equally Man City-ish and Chelsea-ish player in Premier League history?
No fewer than thirteen players have worn the blue of Manchester City and Chelsea in the Premier League era - to varying degrees of success - but who represented them with equal distinction?
Which player sits dead-centre in this North v South footballing Venn diagram, with John Terry one side and Pablo Zabaleta on the other? Whose statue would have to be built on an equidistant point between Stamford Bridge and the Etihad (which turns out to be a pleasant sounding Leicestershire village)?
The deliberately vague criteria remain the same as before. The number of appearances certainly matters, slightly less so their legacy (glorious or tainted) among the fans, their playing style or the manner of their eventual departure. As before, it’s about all of these things...and none of them.
Are we clear? Are you ready to disagree vehemently? Good, let’s analyse the unlucky thirteen candidates.
Click on the photo of your choice to vote
Frank Lampard
An easy start. Lampard is so overwhelmingly Chelsea - thanks to 13 years of service, the club’s scoring record, and all those trophies - that even an 85th-minute equaliser against them on his home debut for Manchester City in 2014 couldn’t make a dent in his legacy.
Verdict: Man City 2% Chelsea 98%
Kevin De Bruyne
De Bruyne’s Chelsea spell is now defined entirely by being frozen out by Jose Mourinho and sent back to the Bundesliga. The stunning impression made at the Etihad since his £55m return to English football in the summer of 2015 has been something else entirely.
Verdict: Man City 89% Chelsea 11%
Terry Phelan
With the greatest respect to Otago United and Charleston Battery, Terry Phelan’s heart lies in Manchester, where he scored the finest of his eight career goals.
Verdict: Man City 86% Chelsea 14%
David Rocastle
A veritable Arsenal legend, which makes his spells at City and Chelsea rather a footnote, but his four years at Stamford Bridge is the clincher here.
Verdict: Man City 25% Chelsea 75%
George Weah
The 33-year-old former Ballon d’Or winner and modern Milan legend turfed up at Chelsea in 2000 on loan - a move still seen as something of a coup for manager Gianluca Vialli - and proceeded to score the winner on his debut against Spurs, followed by a small handful of crucial goals in league and cup.
A free transfer to Manchester City lasted just two months under Joe Royle, who was already blessed with the attacking quartet of Paul Dickov, Shaun Goater, Darren Huckerby and Paulo Wanchope.
Verdict: Man City 30% Chelsea 70%
Wayne Bridge
An early acquisition of the Roman Abramovich era, Wayne Bridge peaked early in a Chelsea shirt with a memorable Champions League winner against Arsenal at Highbury. After that, a succession of left-backs challenged his first-team place, and Ashley Cole eventually made the position his own.
Bridge joined Man City for £10m in 2009, where his only notable moment came back at Stamford Bridge. You’ll remember the fuss.
Verdict: Man City 33% Chelsea 67%
Danny Granville
Chelsea fans may recall an impudent piece of skill in the Cup Winners’ Cup against Slovan Bratislava, but that’s about as good as it got for Danny Granville at Stamford Bridge.
A spell at Manchester City, during which he earned them promotion to the Premier League and where he fondly recalls the home-game atmosphere, swings him over to the Sky Blue side.
Verdict: Man City 65% Chelsea 35%
Laurent Charvet
Bonus points to anyone who remembers Laurent Charvet, what he looks like, or a single moment of his football career. For our purposes, though, his £1m move to Man City in 2000 proves decisive.
Verdict: Man City 63% Chelsea 37%
Daniel Sturridge
After forging quite a reputation in the City youth team, Sturridge rejected a new deal in 2009 and signed for Chelsea, where many expected his career to flourish. Glimpses of magic weren’t enough to nail down a regular place and Liverpool got themselves a £12m bargain in 2013.
Verdict: Man City 49% Chelsea 51%
Tal Ben Haim
A slightly puzzling Chelsea signing during their brief spell of relative austerity towards the end of Jose Mourinho’s first spell in charge. Ben Haim quickly fell behind John Terry, Ricardo Carvalho and Alex in the defensive pecking order, and his angry reaction to being benched led to a club fine and a gentle push in the direction of the exit door. Despite a £5m move to Man City, the story was much the same there.
Verdict: Man City 41% Chelsea 59%
Scott Sinclair
Eighteen Premier League appearances in six seasons at Stamford Bridge and the Etihad more or less sums up the top-flight career of Scott Sinclair, who finally escaped his endless cycle of loan spells by signing for Celtic in the summer.
Verdict: Man City 31% Chelsea 33% On loan somewhere 36%
Nicolas Anelka
A tricky decision here, with a player who made it his life mission to play for as many elite teams as possible (plus Bolton and West Brom). A £13m club-record signing for City in 2002, Anelka inflicted the first Premier League defeat on Chelsea’s Jose Mourinho, going on to score 45 goals in 103 games before taking his world tour on to Fenerbahce.
Anelka was soon back in the Premier League and, relatively speaking, managed to settle well with Chelsea, for whom he played more games than any of his 11 other clubs.
Verdict: Man City 48% Chelsea 52%
MIDDLE MAN: Shaun Wright-Phillips
It’s been a hard slog, but we got here in the end. Wright-Phillips rose steadily through the Man City ranks - winning their Young Player of the Year award four times in a row - to become one of the hottest prospects in English football.
A move to Chelsea, with whom he won the majority of his 36 England caps, perhaps never quite justified the £21m fee, but his effective cameos from the bench earned him three major winner’s medals before a low-key return to the Etihad in 2008 sealed his rather perfectly-balanced legacy.
Verdict: Man City 50% Chelsea 50%