The 2014/15 season is not one that many - if any at all - Manchester City fans will hold fond memories of.
After a superb first campaign with Manuel Pellegrini at the helm saw City win their second Premier League title, the Chilean coach was unable to repeat the feat as his side finished second, eight points adrift of champions Chelsea. City were patchy, good in spells but abysmal in others.
Sergio Aguero won the Golden Boot award for the 26 league goals he scored - his highest single-season tally for the club - but too many members of the squad were ageing and City's ponderous and cross-orientated approach became stale and predictable.
READ MORE: Julian Alvarez is using World Cup to give Pep Guardiola fresh Man City dilemma
A slew of poor signings didn't help things either; Eliaquim Mangala, Fernando and Wilfried Bony failed to settle. However, it was City's most unexpected signing who provided one of the few highlights of an otherwise wasted year.
Nobody foresaw Frank Lampard joining City, largely because he had effectively ruled out such a move. When it became clear that his 13-year spell at Chelsea would come to an end after the conclusion of the 2013/14 season, he insisted that he could not see himself playing for another Premier League side.
His unveiling as a New York City FC player in July 2014 supported that sentiment, but a month later he had swapped the City Football Group start-up for the original City in Manchester.
Conflicting statements from both City and NYCFC misled supporters about Lampard's status: after the midfielder supposedly signed a two-year deal with the American side, it was announced he would spend six months on loan at City ahead of the spring start of the 2015 MLS campaign.
To the great annoyance of NYCFC supporters, that initial loan was then 'extended' until the end of City's season, May 2015, before both parties came clean and admitted that Lampard had never signed a contract with the Americans. He was on a short-term contract with City, not a loan, and when they decided to let him go he would move to America.
If Lampard's solitary season at the Etihad Stadium was marred by controversy, on the pitch he was arguably one of City's players of the season. He impressed so much that City's owners risked the success of their new transatlantic venture to keep him at their flagship club.
Pellegrini earned the nickname 'the engineer' thanks to his strategic style and qualifications in the subject, and for Lampard he had the perfect strategy. Rather than try to reinvent a 36-year-old who was one of the best midfielders of his generation, the manager deployed Lampard in a familiar advanced midfielder role that allowed him to make his trademark late runs into the penalty area.
That tactic paid off to great effect, as Lampard scored a series of vital goals in the first half of the season as the Blues struggled to keep pace with Chelsea. As the season wore on and City's title challenge faded away, the quality of Lampard's passing remained, allowing him to provide a calming presence at the centre of an otherwise faltering team.
City's recent history is full of 'I was there moments', but none have been as surreal as when Lampard scored a wonderful equaliser in a crucial match against his former club. After four games of the season City already trailed Chelsea by five points, so when Pablo Zabaleta was sent off and then Andre Schurrle gave the visitors the lead shortly afterwards, City's title challenge lay in tatters.
Pellegrini knew it would not be easy for Lampard, but he turned to the former England midfielder to get City back in the game. He did not disappoint.
Chelsea's all-time record goalscorer did what he did best, arriving late in the penalty area unmarked to stab home James Milner's cut-back, rescuing a point for City to stop their season unravelling before it had properly begun. Understandably Lampard didn't celebrate, and even looked regretful as his teammates mobbed him, but for City, Chelsea and general football fans alike it was a truly remarkable moment.
Lampard made an impressive 32 league appearances that season, and was able to cap off a fine campaign by scoring on his last-ever Premier League outing, a 2-0 home win against Southampton. Having spent much of his career as a figure feared and despised by City fans - he scored seven goals in 15 appearances against City - he left the Etihad Stadium a fan favourite both for his down-to-earth personality, hard work and dedication on the field.
Perhaps surprisingly given his status as a Chelsea legend, Lampard has reaffirmed his position as a City ally in recent years. After retiring from playing in 2016 he set about earning his coaching qualifications, before he became manager of Derby County in 2018. That led to a fairytale return to Chelsea in 2019, before he took up the reins at Everton earlier this year.
When in October Jurgen Klopp claimed that Liverpool could not compete with City because "they can do what they want financially," Lampard responded with comments that came across a lot like a defence of his former club.
"Liverpool have competed with them [City] with great coaching," he said.
"They've brought in [Virgil] Van Dijk and Alisson [Becker]. They're clearly going to be amongst it [the title race], I can understand what he [Klopp] says. We're the same with Newcastle, they've spent £200m in two windows, we can't do that... I particularly look at the story I was involved in with City, how they handle themselves, I think it's fantastic, that's where I'm at.
"City got voted the Club of the Year last night [at the 2022 Ballon d’Or ceremony] for the many many good things that they do off the pitch. Everybody's different. This thing of financial play I always find a bit strange."
Lampard's move to City in 2014 certainly wasn't expected, but in the short term it more than worked out. In the long term, City gained a wholly unlikely ally.
Lampard will return to the Etihad Stadium on New Year's Eve when City face Everton.
READ NEXT:
