Micah Richards recently shared an interesting story about how he played a crucial role in convincing Joleon Lescott to join Manchester City. Back in August 2009, Lescott made the move to Man City for a hefty fee of about £22 million.
It's worth noting that he had already expressed his desire to leave Everton, where he had been playing under David Moyes.
At that time, Manchester City was still on its journey to becoming a footballing powerhouse, having been taken over by the Abu Dhabi United Group a year prior.
They weren't quite the dominant force we know today. In fact, they finished 10th in the previous season under manager Mark Hughes, while Everton had a better campaign, securing fifth place.
Despite this, Lescott was determined to make the switch to Manchester. And part of the credit for his decision goes to Micah Richards, who went the extra mile while the two were on international duty. Richards recently shared this story on 'The Rest Is Football' podcast, hosted by Gary Lineker and Alan Shearer.
He said: "[Eddie] sort of just nodded at me like, 'Yeah, we're looking at that one'. A week later, I get a call from Joleon, who said it looked like it was going to happen."
"I don't know how long the deal had materialised before he actually came, but Joleon's coming to Manchester City now. And Mark Hughes is only trying to get rid of me in the deal to go to Everton!
"So I'm thinking, 'I've done all the dirty work here, getting Joleon to come to Man City', and Mark Hughes hasn't even told me anything. He's trying to get me to go the other way in a swap deal! What was he thinking?"
Back then, when Richards was just 21 years old, he did stay at City, and he continued to play there for six more years until he left for Aston Villa in 2015.
