Georgi Kinkladze

By Craig · Published 31 October 2026

For three seasons, Manchester City built everything around a Georgian who barely spoke English and never stopped dribbling. Georgi Kinkladze won the club's Player of the Year twice, scored one of the great solo goals of the 1990s and still went down twice. Nobody who saw him at Maine Road has let go of him since.

Clubs

Dinamo Tbilisi, Manchester City, Ajax, Derby County, Anorthosis, Rubin Kazan

Premier League

102 appearances, 7 goals

Honours

Manchester City Player of the Year 1995/96 and 1996/97, Cypriot title with Anorthosis

International

More than 50 caps for Georgia

Fantasy price

£6.5m in 1995/96

How he arrived

City's chairman, Francis Lee, had done the groundwork early, securing first refusal from Dinamo Tbilisi's president if the club ever sold. When the time came, Lee flew out himself and sold Kinkladze the idea that at City he would be the main man. Italian clubs, AC Milan among them, were interested. He chose Moss Side.

He signed on 15 July 1995 for a reported £2m, aged 22. His English was limited to the essentials, and he later said his first words were "give me the ball". It turned out to be the whole plan. Alan Ball, newly appointed as manager, rated him the most talented player he had worked with and built the side around him. His first City goal came in November, the only goal in a 1-0 win over Aston Villa.

The moment: Southampton, 16 March 1996

It was a relegation six-pointer at Maine Road, and it should have been a grim afternoon. Instead Kinkladze picked the ball up and went on a run through the Southampton defence, past one man after another, until only Dave Beasant was left. A feint sent the keeper down, and Kinkladze lifted the ball over him.

City won 2-1. The goal was voted Goal of the Month, and Ball compared it to Maradona against England. Kinkladze, asked about it years later, joked that he had dribbled past "25 people". Lee said he had never seen an ovation last so long.

Three months earlier he had done something similar at the Riverside, slaloming through Middlesbrough's defence and finishing past Gary Walsh. City lost that one 4-1, which tells you most of what you need to know about the 1995/96 season.

It ended with City relegated on goal difference. Southampton, the team he had beaten on his own, stayed up.

Why the streets won't forget

Because he stayed. Relegated players with his talent usually leave in the first week of the summer, and bigger clubs were asking. Kinkladze turned them down, dropped into the second tier with City and won Player of the Year again in 1996/97. Fans held up "Don't Leave" signs written in Georgian.

The argument against him has always been that the team was built for one man and the rest of the side paid for it. Ball, Steve Coppell, Frank Clark and the caretakers in between all bent the system around him. When Joe Royle arrived, his reported first-day verdict was "We have to sell Kinkladze". Royle was probably right about the results. City went down again in 1998, and Kinkladze left for Ajax for around £5m.

Ajax never worked: 12 league games, no goals. Derby took him on loan in late 1999 and then paid a club-record £3m, and he played three more Premier League seasons there, though Colin Todd was soon reminding him there was "an art to tackling".

None of that is what people remember. They remember a small man with the ball glued to his boot and the feeling that something was about to happen every time he got it. It's why, decades later, City fans still wave Georgian flags in his honour.

Where is he now

Kinkladze finished his career in Cyprus, where he won the league with Anorthosis, and in Russia with Rubin Kazan, retiring in 2006. He settled in Moscow and worked as a players' agent, then went back to Anorthosis as sporting director for a season in 2011/12. In 2023 he took part in Rangers' Weekend of Legends in Glasgow.

Which seasons can you draft him in?

Want him in your retro fantasy football team? Pick him in 1995/96 for £6.5m and try to keep City up this time.