But now, almost 13 years after he burst onto the scene as a powerful teenager, the 30-year-old is facing the axe from Aston Villa.
Richards has not played a senior match in 665 days, not since a 1-1 draw with Wolves in the Championship on October 15, 2016.
That day he suffered yet another injury, the 13th of his career, and has not been seen on a football pitch since.
It's his persistent struggles with injuries that have ruined Richards getting anywhere close to fulfilling the potential he once had.
Before his injuries, Richards, now 30, had been one of the most exciting right-backs around.
As a teenager, he was a marauding physical marvel.
He'd made his debut at 17 in 2005, but in spite of his young years, possessed a man's body and would regularly brush off or speed past players a decade older.
Richards won his first England cap at 18, making him England's youngest ever defender – a record he still holds.
The Birmingham-born defender may have fallen out of favour under Fabio Capello after being a favourite of Steve McClaren, but Richards was still only in his early 20s.
The expectation was that once he began to read the game better, he would move inside and form a rock-solid partnership alongside Vincent Kompany.
In the title-winning 2011-12 season, Richards had been first-choice right-back ahead of Pablo Zabaleta, playing 29 Premier League matches.
That summer, Mancini made Richards his vice-captain, behind Kompany, and he was expected to win back a starting place in the England side after being left out of the Euro 2012 squad by Roy Hodgson.
Instead, he'd played five matches for Great Britain during London 2012.
But it was the knee injury Richards, now 30, sustained in a match against Swansea City in October 2012 that changed the course of his career.
With five minutes remaining in the 1-0 win, Richards collapsed in agony with nobody around him, requiring a stretcher and oxygen to get him off the field.
Richards would return six months later, but was never the same player.
In the next two seasons, he played only nine Premier League games for City, before attempting to restart his career away from the spotlight in Italy.
Richards joined Fiorentina on a year-long loan deal but never adapted to Serie A, playing only 10 matches as manager Vincenzo Montella played a back-three.
Richards came home early but was released by Man City that summer, moving to Aston Villa.
It was to be a season of turmoil in the Midlands.
Richards arrived, alongside former Manchester City team-mate Joleon Lescott, to revamp a defence that had barely survived relegation the previous season.
Tim Sherwood, appointed after orchestrating their rescue, believed in Richards and made him the club captain.
But sadly for the defender, Sherwood lasted only until the end of October after Villa picked up just four points from their opening 10 matches.
Richards remained in the team when fit, playing 27 games in all competitions, as Kevin MacDonald, Remi Garde and Eric Black all failed to kick-start a resurgence.
Villa were relegated, finishing bottom, before a change of ownership, a summer of heavy spending and another new manager brought belief that the Villains would bounce straight back.
But the quick start everybody anticipated never materialised.
Under Roberto Di Matteo Villa were dreadful, winning just one of their opening 11 before the Chelsea legend was sacked.
Richards had been out of the team, but Steve Bruce had come in and Richards was promised a clean slate.
In fact, he started Bruce's first game in charge, against rivals Wolves, his first league start of the season.
But disaster struck again for Richards, who suffered another knee injury.
To date, that has been the final game of his career.
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He appeared on the bench in a Carabao Cup defeat to Middlesbrough last season but hasn't been close to making an appearance since.
Now Bruce wants the Villa board to get him out of his contract early.
There have been calls from Aston Villa fans for Richards to quit the club or retire – they have been left furious at his picking up more than £3million without playing a minute of football in nearly two years.
Retirement certainly wouldn't seem off the cards, a shame for a player once tipped for superstardom.
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