England international leaves Man City after earning £4.1m in wages without making single appearance

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Richard Wright, we don’t know whether to salute you or envy you.

We have no idea how he conned Manchester City into giving him a contract in 2012, but the goalkeeper has today left the Etihad having not made a single first-team appearance in his four years there.

But his career with the Citizens was far from a waste of time. According to Mirror journalist Alex Richards, Wright pocketed an astounding £4.1m in wages for simply sitting on the sidelines.

So Wright has basically been living the glamorous footballer lifestyle without any of the football.

The 38-year-old was once a real prospect, playing 298 times for boyhood club Ipswich Town to help them gain promotion to the Premier League, and then qualify for the UEFA Cup in their first season.

And he won two England caps in his younger days – giving away two penalties against Malta on debut and then making a substitute cameo against Netherlands in his only other appearance 14 months later.

He was bought by Arsenal in 2001 and was briefly number one, but since leaving the Gunners in 2002, he has settled for a career as a bench-warmer, picking up his sizeable cheques along the way.

Wright’s last competitive appearance came in his third spell at Ipswich in November 2011. Since then, Leicester City have been promoted to and won the Premier League. Football is a crazy world.

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