Stephen Ireland certainly represents one of the great 'what ifs' in Irish football.
Not only did he only pick up a handful of caps at international level, but his career at club level did not live up to anywhere near the early promise it had displayed.
After breaking through at Manchester City, it looked as though he would go right to the top of the game. Then when the new owners came in, many suspected that he would be central to their project.
The reality was far different. While he would initially continue to shine, the arrival of Roberto Mancini signalled the beginning of the end of his time at the club. He would ultimately leave for Aston Villa, where a steady decline set in.
Stephen Ireland was not a fan of Roberto Mancini
To this day, the former midfielder feels like his career could have panned out very differently if he had worked under a different manager during this period at Manchester City.
Stephen Ireland exclusively told Ladbrokes: Fanzone that Mancini rubbed quite a few people the wrong way during his time at the club, even resulting in physical altercations at times.
I honestly believe that if it was anyone but Roberto Mancini, my career at Man City would've gone differently...
It's not just me; I know there's a handful of players who would say the same... he was just not a good guy. The squad was so good, the players won the trophies for him; it wasn't him.
The amount of arguments and fights and fists I saw in training, honestly, if only there was an Amazon documentary back then, with some of the stuff he was doing. Honestly, it was just incredible; the amount of times him and Carlos Tevez would go head-to-head, swinging for each other.. mental stuff. And it was over literally nothing.
I don't know if that was just his tactic to constantly p*** people off.
Maybe he was a genius, maybe he just wanted to p*** everyone off. I don't know; no one knows. But if it was anyone else who came in, be it a Manuel Pellegrini, or a Pep Guardiola, I think I would've played a bigger part in things.
Mancini would win the Premier League title while at The Etihad, although his spell was also filled with a number of public incidents involving his players.
When the money arrived at the club, it was inevitable that many of the previous stalwarts in the squad would be pushed out. However, Ireland feels that a major mistake was made when they let Richard Dunne go.
You had a long list of lads that were leaving, and some of those lads, for me, still served such a purpose within the club.
Richard Dunne is a prime example; they got rid of him in 2009, but he should've been part of the furniture. He was so good with the young lads, everyone worshipped him in the changing room, and what he said was gospel. No matter what he said, that was it; no one would ever cross him.
He needed to be there. He'd have had no issues in putting Balotelli in a headlock if he needed to. Adebayor comes in - a lovely guy - and starts being really rebellious, downs his tools and starts refusing to do certain things... Richard Dunne would have nipped that sort of thing in the bud straight away.
If Richard Dunne would've stayed at the club for another four years, on the same wages, that's an invaluable person to have around the place.
Dunne would go on to shine at Aston Villa, even being included in the PFA Team of the Year on one occasion during his spell in Birmingham.
As for Ireland, he would fail to hit anywhere near the same heights over the remainder of his career.
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