Sport

The club spent just over £150million in the summer window to recruit star names including World Cup runners-up Angel Di Maria and Marcos Rojo.

While City are still a long way off matching the big dogs Real Madrid, Barcelona and rivals Manchester United, they have certainly announced themselves on the global scene.

Investment into grassroots football in Manchester since 2000 has seen it receive 30 fewer grants than Leicester, according to new figures released by the Football Foundation.

MCFC Forum won the judges’ vote for ‘Best Football Forum’ at this year’s Football Blogging Awards hosted at the National Football Museum, the third annual event of its kind which aims to reward and recognise football bloggers for their dedication to the sport.

Rooney marked his 100th international appearance with a goal in Saturday’s 3-1 Euro 2016 qualifier win against Slovenia at Wembley, his 44th for the Three Lions.

Rochdale’s five-game unbeaten run was ended thanks to Michael Brown’s second-half strike, pushing Keith Hill’s team out of the League One play-off places and down to eighth.

Kevin Ellison’s second-half goal was enough for Morecambe to condemn Bury to their fourth defeat in five away league games.

Johnson described the build-up to Crawley’s equaliser as a ‘comedy of errors’ from his team and the overall performance as a ‘bit flat’ after the 1-1 draw.

The very first round of Euro 2016 qualifiers, after Uefa head Platini’s idea to revamp the tournament from 16 qualifiers to 24 out of the 53 European nations, proved the detractors wrong when out of nowhere, televisions were tuned to internationals like never before.

Sitting ninth in the table after 13 games, the Manchester outfit play back-to-back home games this weekend after a much-needed win over the Basingstoke Bison last time out.

After lapses in concentration cost them games against mediocre opposition – including a first-round BBL Cup loss against Leeds Force – head coach Jeff Jones has managed to transform his team into a tighter, altogether more efficient unit.