Man City’s brazen defiance only highlights their ludicrous advantages

It was a shock to realise on Sunday, as I sat down to watch them compete in the Premier League after all, that I had forgotten what was to come.

Two weeks on from the news that Manchester City had been found guilty of nearly all charges relating to breaches of the league’s financial regulations, the men that represent them filed out at Anfield, unbeaten, at the top of the table.

Two weeks of analysis and increasingly hysterical counterargument finally gave way to this: the football.

Before the weekend I’d spent some time on the Tactical Preview Show I present for The Athletic, thinking about whether Liverpool would make any tactical tweaks to deal with the occasion. But the more interesting questions were psychological.

What kind of impact would a riled-up Anfield have on City? How could Liverpool take the sting out of such an unusual game – or use it to their advantage?

Former England goalkeeper Rob Green compared it to his experience arriving at Sheffield United to play for West Ham after they had managed so unexpectedly to secure the services of Carlos Tevez and Javier Mascherano. Rob found the welcome brutal and West Ham lost 3-0, beaten just as much by the crowd’s disgust as their own failings.

So it was in that context that I looked forward to kick-off at 4.30pm, forgetting that I was about to watch the best football team in England.
The pageantry was superb. The travelling City fans with their ‘Imre Varadi’ bananas – a nod to the 80s, and a cult player from their days struggling in Division 2.

The roar of a disrespected Liverpool and all their missed titles during the nine seasons City have been judged cheats. ‘Cheats, cheats, cheats’ bellowed by everyone in red, and the booing and whistling for any City player on the ball.

The tone City have generally taken in recent days is to cast themselves as victims of an unfair machine.

When the players have been allowed to speak to the media, they strive to make no reference at all to context, and so it can only be understood obliquely.

Said Erling Haaland before Liverpool: ‘We have to stay positive, look ahead, and try to win football games and try to enjoy the situation and win the game.

‘We have to stick together; we have to spread the love to each other.’
Admirable sentiments within any team. But the siege mentality feels almost provocative: this judgement is not a bad thing that has happened to Manchester City, this is a bad thing that Manchester City has independently been ruled to have perpetrated.

Of course the players will largely have been uninvolved, given the period in question runs until 2018, but it would be poor due diligence if their agents hadn’t made them aware of it all. Like it or not, this story is theirs too.

This same weekend just gone, I was invited to take part in an event called the Super Rich Tax Match. It was a caper really, a football game designed to draw attention to a quirk of the tax system that means many billionaires pay less tax, as a proportion of their wealth, than those on minimum wage.

To bring this to life, one team was given ludicrous advantages, including being allowed to overturn refereeing calls and, eventually, sub players on without having to take anyone off.

By half-time we were a team of 17 and we were 5-2 up. The other side then lost heart, frustrated by the unfairness of the challenge.

An amusing metaphor, and one that stayed with me as I watched City beat Liverpool 3-0.

Though it was impossible not to enjoy Rayan Cherki’s wizardry for the third goal or Jeremy Doku’s worldie, City’s win had a brazen quality to it.

I had imagined the game would play out differently, both teams’ players affected by everything we know. But the confidence and zest with which City’s wonderful side pulled away was exactly the point.

Make all the noise you like, they said, it is irrelevant. We will beat you.

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