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.