The sale of Robinho has marked the end of an era for Manchester City. The Brazilian arrived with high expectations of taking City to the next level and in a strange way he has sort lived up to the expectations.

City fans will look back fondly to the day of Robinho’s arrival. He signing was the marquee singing on that eventful day and somebody that would make the world take notice of City’s new millions.

While his on the field impact was limited scoring just 16 times during his time at Eastlands ( a cost of over £2 million a goal) the Brazilian served his purpose and was able to help City gradually bring in the better standard of players they desired.

It was at this point that Robinho began to fall out of favour with City’s management. He was no longer required to have an impact on the field mainly because his attitude didn’t fit in with either Mark Hughes or Roberto Mancini’s method.

City no longer needed Robinho and the loan move to Santos only held up the forwards investable departure from Manchester, but as I suggested before I don’t think City will look back on Robinho’s signing as a failure.

He may have come with a huge price and an astronomical wages but he has helped to put City on the map. Without the signing of Robinho on that day back in 2008 you feel that City might have found it hard to attract the likes of Carlos Tevez and Emmanuel Adebayor the following summer. From then on though Robinho had served his purpose and the fact that City managed to sell him for a reported £22milion is only a mere bonus.

But he has now set a worrying trend for the likes of Adebayor and Roque Santa Cruz who look set to move on sooner rather than later. With City’s millions they will always be looking to better the squad. The worry for those players will be that if a top player becomes available, will Mancini or whoever is in charge at the time will opt to move players out once again.