When Manchester City were taken over by Sheikh Mansour in the summer of 2008, the club were naturally linked with a host of star names for considerable transfer fees.
Richard Dunne would go onto play 31 times at centre-back for City in the Premier League during the 2008/09 season, but, when it came to the summer transfer window, the Irish international felt the club were forcing him out.
"It was annoying because they were trying to sign John Terry during pre-season in South Africa," Dunne tells FourFourTwo.
"I asked, 'Am I leaving?' and the staff said, 'No, he’s going to play with you' – so they were all lying, which I didn’t appreciate. I didn’t feel that I needed to just sit around."
When FFT asks about former Manchester City CEO Garry Cook comments: "Richard Dunne doesn’t roll off the tongue in Beijing" talking about the club’s global ambitions, Dunne is forthright in his response.
"We’d had a couple of meetings prior to that and he wasn’t someone I particularly liked, so it didn’t surprise me," Dunne says.
"He wasn’t a football person and I didn’t have much respect for him. It was almost, ‘Forget the football – we just want to sell jerseys’, while I thought the club needed to concentrate on getting better."
Get better they duly did, though not without Dunne. After nine full seasons at Manchester City, Dunne departed for Aston Villa, costing Martin O'Neill's side £5m.
City, meanwhile, were unable to bring in their desired centre-back of John Terry. Instead, they replaced Dunne with Joleon Lescott and Kolo Toure, adding the pair to a squad which already included Vincent Kompany, Nedum Onuoha and Micah Richards.
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