Manchester City's best ever XI ... The first midfielder 😎 | OneFootball

With the football on hold at the moment, we’ve been thinking about who gets in Manchester City’s all-time XI.

Yesterday we completed our back four. Today we’re choosing the first of three midfielders.

Here are the nominees …

3rd – Ali Benarbia

If City had signed Benarbia when he was a younger man, there’s every chance he would have featured much higher on this list.

As it was, Kevin Keegan brought the ageing Algerian playmaker over from Paris Saint-Germain in 2001 but within minutes of his debut, the Maine Road faithful knew they had a special player on their hands.

Benarbia inspired City’s return to the Premier League with some dazzling displays in the First Division and the following year he was made captain.

Time caught up with him in the end and he left in 2003, but Ali B will always be fondly remembered in the blue half of Manchester.

2nd – Alan Oakes

Oakes came through the youth system at City and made his senior debut in 1959.

He went on to become a mainstay of the sides which won five major honours in the 1960s and 70s and so important was he to the team that he missed just one match in the whole of the 1967/68 title season.

Oakes stayed at City until 1976 and he remains the club’s all-time leading appearance maker with 680.

And the winner is … Yaya Touré

City fans thought they were signing a world class defensive midfielder when Touré joined from Barcelona in the summer of 2010, but they ended up getting so much more.

The Ivorian added drive, power and incredible technique the middle of the park and not only did he score 79 goals during his eight seasons at the club, he scored some incredibly important ones too.

There was the winner against Manchester United in the 2011 FA Cup semi-final, followed by the winner against Stoke in the final.

There was his two goals against Newcastle in the penultimate game of the 2012 title winning season.

There was his equaliser against Sunderland in the 2014 League Cup final – just one of the 24 he scored that year in what is remembered as one of the finest ever campaigns by a Premier League midfielder.

Touré was one of the most influential players in City’s history and if the club had its own version of Mount Rushmore, his face would undoubtedly be on it.

Here’s how the team is looking so far …

GK: Bert Trautmann RB: Pablo Zabaleta LB: Glyn Pardoe CB: Aymeric Laporte CB: Vincent Kompany CM: Yaya Touré

Check back tomorrow when we will be choosing the second midfielder!