2007-08 season | |||
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Owner & chairman |
Thaksin Shinawatra | ||
Manager | Sven-Göran Eriksson | ||
Stadium | City of Manchester Stadium | ||
Premier League | 9th | ||
FA Cup | Fourth round | ||
League Cup | Fifth round | ||
Top goalscorer |
League: Elano (8) All: Elano (10) |
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Highest home attendance | 47,321 (vs. Liverpool, 30 December 2007) |
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Lowest home attendance | 20,938 (vs. Norwich City, 25 September 2007) |
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Average home league attendance | 42,126 | ||
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The 2007–08 season was Manchester City Football Club's sixth consecutive season playing in the Premier League, the top division of English football, and its 11th season since the Premier League was first created, with Manchester City as one of the its original 22 founding member clubs. Overall, it was the team's 116th season playing in a division of English football, most of which have been spent in the top flight.
The season started with a new owner in Thaksin Shinawatra and his newly appointed manager, Sven-Göran Eriksson. After spending three of the four previous Premier League seasons finishing in low mid-table positions (i.e., two to four places above the relegation zone), the Manchester City team was badly in need of an influx of new blood if it was to avoid a similar fate, or worse, in the upcoming season. Consequently, the newly infused funds from the club's wealthy Thai owner came at quite a fortuitous time for the team, and Eriksson was very active in the summer transfer market as he spent approximately £30 million adding eight relatively high-profile players to the City first team squad.
As a consequence of this mini spending spree Manchester City started the new season strongly and spent a large portion of it occupying one of the top five positions in the Premier League table. Unfortunately, the strong results of the first two thirds of the season were not sustained in the final third and the team ultimately slipped down the rankings to finish the season in ninth place. This loss of form in the final months also led to Shinawatra summarily sacking Eriksson, a decision that was received with mixed emotions by the Manchester City supporters since both characters had achieved the status of "white knights" in their eyes for their respective financial and managerial contributions to the transformation of the club. Two days after his end-of-season dismissal, on 2 June 2008 Eriksson was replaced by Mark Hughes.
This season also saw Manchester City gain entry into the next season's UEFA Cup competition by finishing sixth in the English "Fair Play" rankings (with the five teams ranked above City having already qualified for European competition).