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The decade of 2010-2019 was undoubtedly one where Manchester City achieved the most success in their history, with the club reaping the dividends of their takeover by Sheikh Mansour and consolidating their status as one of the premier clubs in the world.
Several milestones were achieved by the Mancunians and they rose from mid-table mediocrity to become arguably the most dominant force ever seen in the history of the English game.
Manchester City were involved in a host of defining matches during the decade and in this piece, we shall be highlighting the 10 most iconic matches involving the club in the decade lasting 2010-2019 in chronological order.
Manchester City 1-0 Stoke City (14 May, 2011)
As already indicated, Manchester City's takeover by Oil magnate Sheikh Mansour in 2008 transformed their fortunes and turned them into the money bags of the Premier League much like Chelsea some years earlier.
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However, unlike the Londoners, Manchester City had to go through many false starts, with plenty of players coming in for huge transfer fees but failing to do much on the field.
In those early years, there were genuine threats that the club would prove to be a disappointment, as three years into the takeover, they had yet to qualify for the Champions League much less win a major trophy.
All that, however, changed in May 2011 when the Cityzens came up against Stoke City in the final of the FA Cup.
They had earlier dispatched Manchester United 1-0 n the semifinal, with Yaya Toure scoring the goal and once again, the former Ivory Coast international was on hand to score the decisive goal in the final, thundering a left-footed pile-driver past Thomas Sorensen to give City her first major trophy in 35 years.
The triumph marked City's arrival in the big-time and they this is a status they have enjoyed since then.
Manchester United 1-6 Manchester City (October 23, 2011)
Despite the gains made by Manchester City at the start of the decade, Manchester United fans refused to accept the club's rising profile, with Sir Alex Ferguson disparagingly referring to them as the 'noisy neighbours' and swore that it would be 'over his dead body' that the Cityzens would win the Premier League.
The first step to changing this narrative came when the blue half of Manchester visited Old Trafford in October 2011.
At that point, the two clubs occupied the top two positions on the table and this match was seen as an opportunity for Manchester United to put their ambitious neighbours in check.
It, however, turned out differently than expected, with Manchester City thumping the hosts in a 6-1 defeat which happened to be their worst home loss since 1955 (when City themselves beat them 5-0).
The half-time ended 1-0 in favour of the Cityzens but few would have predicted the decimation to follow, with Mario Balotelli adding to his first-half strike (proceeding to unveil the iconic 'Why Always Me' tee-shirt), while Sergio Aguero and David Silva also got in on the act with Edin Dzeko wrapping things up with a brace.
Darren Fletcher had earlier scored for the hosts to make it 3-1 and their efforts were undoubtedly compounded by a red card issued to Johnny Evans.
This win was worth more than just three points to Manchester City and the margin of victory played a major role in not only deciding the title race but also gave them bragging rights against their more illustrious neighbours.
Manchester City 1-0 Manchester United (April 30, 2012)
Having won the FA Cup the year before, Manchester City sought to build on that and recruited the highly-rated Sergio Aguero from Atletico Madrid to aid their cause.
During the season, the two Manchester clubs were engaged in a fierce race for the title and Manchester City had the early advantage until some slip-ups at the midway point of the campaign handed the initiative back to their city rivals.
With six matches to go, Manchester United had an eight-point advantage and judging by their precedent, anyone would have been forgiven for thinking the race was over.
However, they uncharacteristically dropped points in consecutive matches to Everton and Wigan Athletic which saw their lead at the top cut to just three points.
It was with this premise that they arrived at the City of Manchester Stadium on matchday 36 of the 2011/2012 season, setting up a winner-takes-all clash, although a draw would have been favourable for the Red Devils.
As it happened, a Vincent Kompany header 10 minutes into the second half was enough to settle the heated contest and move City level on points with United, although their superior goal difference saw them win the title on the last day.
Manchester City 3-2 QPR (May 13, 2012)
Following up from their matchday 36 victory over Manchester United to move level on points with them, Manchester City came into the last fixture of the season against QPR knowing that a victory would grant them immortality.
The City of Manchester City Stadium was in party mode and why wouldn't they, as their opponents were engaged in a relegation dogfight and were expected to not pose much of a problem.
With multiple proven players in their ranks and the added incentive of winning to lift the trophy, nothing could go wrong, could it?
Well, it started routinely enough for the two title contenders, with Wayne Rooney sending Manchester United into an early lead against Sunderland to stun City fans into silence.
They soon found their voices in the 39th-minute when right-back Pablo Zabaleta put them ahead and they seemed on course for a routine victory.
However, there is always something about facing a team battling relegation and that proved to be the case just three minutes after the restart when Djibril Cisse levelled for the visitors and former City man Joey Barton was sent off for a clash with Carlos Tevez.
Despite their numerical advantage, the home side found themselves behind to a Jamie Mackie header in the 66th minute to create disbelief among the City faithful.
From then on, the game was practically played in QPR's half as they sought to protect their lead while City tried to force the equalizer but try as they did, they simply could not find an opening.
By the time five minutes of additional time was shown on the board, Manchester United were still leading and City needed two goals to win the title and the seeming impossibility had made some fans leave the stadium in tears.
Two minutes into stoppage time, Edin Dzeko rose highest to equalize but one more goal was still needed with less than two minutes remaining.
The rollercoaster of emotions was completed for fans of the club when Sergio Aguero plodded home in the 5th minute of stoppage time and the image of him wheeling away with his shirt above his head in celebration to be mobbed by everyone including his teammates, manager, and backroom staff is one that would live forever.
Manchester City 3-2 Bayern Munich (25 November, 2014)
For all of their impressiveness domestically, Manchester City found the going tough on the continent and failed to progress from the group stage in each of their first two appearances in the Champions League.
They broke their duck in the 2013/2014 season but were in danger of once again crashing out in the group stage a year later.
Having been drawn with Bayern Munich, AS Roma, and CSKA Moscow, City failed to win any of their first four matches and were bottom of the table heading into their matchday 5 clash with Bayern.
Anything other than a victory would have put paid to their European ambitions and that seemed to be the case when Bayern led 2-1 at half-time despite being a man down.
However, with just five minutes left on the clock, City completed a stirring comeback, with Sergio Aguero levelling from the spot and scoring his hat-trick in injury time to give the Cityzens hope.
They followed this up with another emphatic display away at Roma, winning 2-0 at the Stadio Olimpico to progress to the knockout round.
Manchester City 1-3 Chelsea (3 December, 2016)
Pep Guardiola's reputation prior to taking the Manchester City job coupled with the club's signings in the summer installed the Catalan as the odds-on favourite to win the Premier League title in his debut season.
However, after a bright start to life, the Cityzens hit a rough patch of form and this was in marked contrast to Chelsea who were enjoying a renaissance under Antonio Conte ever since switching to a back-three.
The Blues visited the Etihad on a seven-game winning streak and many saw the game as an opportunity to effectively gauge the sustainability of Chelsea's title charge.
An own-goal by Gary Cahill put them behind but the visitors responded with a second-half fightback, with goals from Diego Costa, Willian, and Eden Hazard giving them all three points and setting them on course for a record-breaking Premier League triumph.
The defeat also had far-reaching positive repercussions for Manchester City, as it highlighted that Claudio Bravo was not a sustainable long-term option in goal, while the underperformance of the City full-backs also prompted recruitment and sales the next summer.
Manchester City 2-3 Manchester United (7 April, 2018)
Following Sir Alex Ferguson's resignation from football management, Manchester City became the most dominant club in Manchester, with the Cityzens pushing the Red Devils to near mediocrity.
While Manchester United descended into chaos, their city rivals rose and consolidated their status as the top club in England, with the pinnacle coming in Pep Guardiola's second season at the club.
Over the 2017/2018 campaign, Manchester City established themselves as runaway leaders of the Premier League, with the question of how soon they would become champions rather than if they would win the title.
With their status as champions-elect guaranteed, the Cityzens hosted their city rivals on matchday 32 and had the chance to win the title if they picked up all three points.
This would have seen them break Manchester United's record for winning the title with six matches to spare and they seemed on curse to achieved this when Vincent Kompany and Ilkay Gundogan put them 2-0 up inside the first 30 minutes.
However, the thought of having their rivals celebrate a title win in the Manchester derby was seemingly too much for the United players to bear and they rallied in the second half, with Paul Pogba leading their fightback.
The Frenchman scored a brace in as many minutes, while Chris Smalling scored a 69th-minute winner and although City went ahead to win the title two weeks later, Manchester United's victory on the day denied fans of the club what would have been the perfect end to an extraordinary campaign.
Southampton 0-1 Manchester City (13 May, 2018)
Manchester City set a lot of English records en-route their 2018 Premier League record, including for most goals scored, most points accrued, most points difference to runners-up, and joint-earliest to winning the league title.
Prior to their title win, no club in English league history had ever crossed the 100-point mark and heading into the last day of the campaign, Manchester City were on their way to recreating history.
When Southampton hosted the league champions at the St Mary's Stadium, Manchester City were on 97 points and just one win away from history.
They needed a victory to attain what no one else had done and Southampton played their part in frustrating their visitors until Gabriel Jesus created history with virtually the last kick of the game.
When the Brazilian international scored in the 94th minute, it guaranteed that City grabbed all three points, ensuring that they became the first English side to ever accrue 100 points in a league season.
Manchester City 2-1 Liverpool (3 January, 2019)
Manchester City and Liverpool were engaged in a neck-and-neck battle for the 2019 Premier League title that saw the title race run until the last day.
The Mancunians became league champions by just a point difference to their nearest rivals but there is a very high possibility that it would not have happened had they not picked up a victory over the Reds in January 2019.
At the end of the campaign, Liverpool accrued just one loss, with the defeat coming at the hands of Manchester City at the Etihad in January 2019.
Sergio Aguero opened the scoring for the hosts in the 40th minute to give City a first-half lead before an equalizer from Roberto Firmino levelled matters in the 64th minute and a 72nd-minute winner from Leroy Sane practically decided the title race of 2018/2019.
Manchester City 4-3 Tottenham (17 April, 2019)
Manchester City made history by becoming the first side to win a domestic treble in 2019 but with just over a month left in the season, there were loud whispers of an unprecedented quadruple.
Much has been made of the fact that Pep Guardiola has not won the Champions League since 2011 and with heavyweights like Juventus, Atletico Madrid, Real Madrid, and Bayern Munich already eliminated, the coast was seemingly clear for the Catalan to right this wrong.
They were paired against a Tottenham side who were one of those trailing City in the league and Guardiola would have been confident in his side's ability to get the job done.
However, they got more than they bargained for in a 1-0 first leg defeat but despite that, the advantage was still with the Mancunians ahead of the return leg.
In what was a whirlwind opening, the hosts went ahead inside four minutes only for a quickfire brace by Son Heung-min to put Tottenham ahead by the 10th minute.
Just a minute later, the hosts had drawn level through Bernardo Silva and Raheem Sterling scored the 5th goal of the game in the 21st minute to level the tie and hand the initiative to the Premier League champions.
Sergio Aguero gave City a two-goal lead in the 59th minute and this would have been enough to secure progression until a contentious goal by Fernando Llorente put Tottenham back in the driving seat in the 79th minute.
There was still to be more drama, as in the 95th minute, Raheem Sterling scored what he thought was the winning goal, only for VAR to cut short the wild celebrations after adjudging Sergio Aguero to be marginally offside in the buildup thus ending Manchester City's hope for a unique quadruple.
