First in a new series of occasional top-flight football columns from Jim McKay as he casts his eye over Manchester City's statement of intent

ONE drizzling Sunday August '08 morning in Manchester, the sky blue half of the city awoke, put the kettle on, kicked out the cat, turned on the TV and set about checking their lottery numbers.

As the news filtered around the world, dazed and confused, these fans realised that all 6 numbers had landed, they had in their hands the winning ticket to the biggest jackpot in world football's history, and life of being the 'noisy neighbours' of world super-power Manchester United was never ever going to be the same again.

Back to back relegations still fresh in the memory, watching in horror as their club at one point declined into the third tier of English football, then the schlepping depressing away trips to Luton Town and Wycombe Wanderers, the daily red taunting chants at work of "this is how it feels to be City, this is how it feels to be small, this is how it feels when your team wins nothing at all" - to the famous tune of 90's Manc band 'Inspiral Carpets' still ringing in their ears - it was all about to become just a distant memory.

City's new owner had a personal fortune of 17 billion pounds, and as if that wasn't enough, this £17 billion was backed by an estimated family fortune of one trillion US Dollars.

Like a scene straight from an old Harry Enfield sketch, City that season essentially gave a quick knock on the grand doors up at Old Trafford Heights and politely informed a stark red faced Sir Alex Ferguson - that they were now - "Considerably richer than yaow"....before pulling away in their custom plated CTID Rolls Royce singing "we got Robinho, we got Robinho"....

Times they were indeed, a changing.

Robinho of course was never a huge success in Manchester, but that was never the primary concern, this transfer was simply a benchmark, the £32.5 million Brazilian purchase from Real Madrid broke the British transfer record and was a statement of intent from football's all new modern day super-power.

As the gavel fell on the sale of the Brazilian International the message was very clear.

Manchester City's Eagle was rising.

Seven years on, and a few league titles later, City have flexed that muscle power once again, a footballer in England leaving Liverpool FC to take his game to the 'next level', to 'step up' to the ranks and the 'higher' ambitions and expectations of a club with a far superior squad and much heavier pull in the transfer market can only serve to pay testament to how far this once crumbling club have come in such a small space of time.

It represents a power shift in 7 years of epic proportions, so if nothing else you could call this Raheem Sterling transfer a benchmark.

A statement of intent...

...and that sounds a little familiar.

Sterling and Manchester City are available at 5/2 to be crowned kings of England in May.

Premier League Outright 2015/16

• Chelsea 6/4

Manchester City 5/2

Arsenal 9/2

Manchester Utd 5/1

Liverpool 28/1

Tottenham 100/1

Southampton 200/1

Everton 250/1

Stoke 1500/1

Swansea 1500/1

Crystal Palace 2500/1

Newcastle 2500/1

West Brom 2500/1

West Ham 2500/1

Aston Villa 5000/1

Bournemouth 5000/1

Leicester 5000/1

Norwich 5000/1

Sunderland 5000/1

Watford 5000/1