How Richard Dunne and Sylvain Distin’s Partnership Saved Manchester City

There are some names that just go together well. Morecambe and Wise. Laurel and Hardy. Rodgers and Hammerstein. There’s an almost endless list of double acts down the years where two people have worked well together, making up for each other’s weaknesses and boosting each other’s strengths.

For Manchester City, one such partnership that served them well when a lot of other areas of the team were letting them down came in the centre of defence. Despite several years of struggle and mediocrity in the early 2000s, bosses Kevin Keegan and Stuart Pearce could rely on the centre of their defence to give them a fighting chance.

Add two more names to the likes of Sonny and Cher, Reeves and Mortimer, or Simon and Garfunkel—Richard Dunne and Sylvain Distin.

Both of the centre-backs were captain at City for a period, and both of them were leaders on the pitch. Throughout the Premier League slump that the club suffered between 2003 and 2006, the Irishman and the Frenchman were constants in the team’s year-on-year survival.

One was left- and the other was right-footed, meaning they both felt natural on their side of the defence.

That was no more highlighted than in what’s often regarded as City’s worst top-flight season, 2006-07, as Pearce’s side managed 10 goals at home all campaign and spent the majority of matches creating nothing but one or two chances. Knowing that their strikers probably weren’t going to score, both Dunne and Distin had to be at the top of their game to earn as many points as possible.

Dunne joined the club first. He was captured by Joe Royle for his City team in October 2000, moving from Everton in a deal worth in the region of £3 million. Initially played as a right-back, the defender was a mainstay in the side for his first season—though that changed when City were relegated from the top flight and Royle was dismissed as boss.

Under Keegan, Dunne was close to being let go. He turned up to training drunk and was almost sacked by the manager. Instead, with his manager and the PFA’s help, he went through rehabilitation and would go on to be a shining light in the team, per the Irish Times.

The centre-back might be widely mocked for the frequency of his own goals, but the majority were down to last-ditch attempts at keeping the ball out of the net and inadvertently getting the …

continue reading in source www.bleacherreport.com