DELETECITY

Your club · Blackburn Rovers

£18m for Santa Cruz. Then he came back.

Blackburn Rovers had three Premier League seasons in these nine and went down in 2011/12, with or without Manchester City. The number City really changes is the £18.0m in reported fees it paid for Roque Santa Cruz.

At a glance

Premier League seasons
3 of 9 · 2009/10 to 2011/12
Points taken off City
1 in 6 league games
Transfers with City
City paid Blackburn £18.0m in reported fees for 1 player; Blackburn paid City £0.

Season by season: real → without City

  1. 2009/10Real: 10th, without City: 8th
  2. 2010/11Real: 15th, without City: 14th
  3. 2011/12Real: 19th, without City: 18th

The nine seasons

Blackburn Rovers played the first three of the nine seasons in the Premier League and the last six outside it. Take Manchester City out and the shape holds: two seasons safe, then relegation in 2011/12.

The rebuild barely touches Blackburn’s points, because Blackburn barely touched City’s. Six league games, five defeats and a 1–1 at City in September 2010. One point taken off City in three seasons, and it is the only point that comes off.

In 2010/11 that point goes; the 1–0 home defeat by City on 25 April takes nothing. The free place, the one every club below City gets, is all Blackburn get: 15th becomes 14th of 19, on 42 points, level with Wigan and five clear of the drop. They ended that season by winning 3–2 at Wolves on the last day.

2009/10

Eighth, not tenth

Blackburn lost 2–0 at home to City on 15 August and 4–1 at City on 11 January. Two defeats, so they keep all 50 points, and with City’s place gone they pass one more club: eighth of 19, not tenth. Blackburn and Wolves, both beaten twice by City, are the only clubs to climb two places that season.

2011/12

Six short

The last of the three seasons ends the same way in both tables. Blackburn were beaten 4–0 at home by City on 1 October and 3–0 at City in February, so nothing comes off, and nothing saves them either.

Nineteenth for real becomes 18th of 19 without City: the free place, and no further. 31 points, six short of 16th and safety, 58 behind the champions without City.

The money

City paid Blackburn £18.0m in reported fees for Roque Santa Cruz in summer 2009, none undisclosed. That is 5.7% of the £315.5m City paid Premier League clubs in the nine seasons. It is also £18.0m of the £46.0m Blackburn received in reported fees across their three Premier League seasons. The money City paid is the one figure here that isn’t a guess: take City out and that money goes too.

Santa Cruz came back to Blackburn on loan in January 2011. A second City loan, Jack Byrne in summer 2016, came while Blackburn were outside the Premier League. Blackburn paid City nothing in reported fees.

Every season, club by club

Positions are real of 20 and rebuilt of 19; see How it works.