Man City blow Liverpool away at Anfield – but was it all meaningless?
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Three brilliant finishes, and possibly the only ending this freak match was ever going to have.
Manchester City again abrasively drive on amidst it all, absolutely revelling in a 3-0 win at Liverpool, but nobody knows what it will actually mean.
Few, outside the City fans in the relished moments of celebration, even know what to feel.
It does highlight the very absurdity of the situation, as the Abu Dhabi-owned club get to have this act of defiance, and the rest of the league gets even more furious about it all.
City fans, for their part, also got to feel something “real” after the uncertainty over the past two weeks. Liverpool, like everyone else, are waiting for a clarity that now seems essential for this very season.
It was why the main impression from this game should not be regarding City’s “brilliance”. Really, after two weeks of build-up and debate about the Premier League “brand”, we saw the real damage. This immediately felt untenable.
It only emphasises the need for this process to be concluded and – above all – why the sanctions should have been announced with the decision.
That would also add more of an incentive for both sides on the appeals process.
This is otherwise a farce for the Premier League, a bizarre unreality.
Except, this is far more serious than the light tone that City’s inflatables lent.
None of that should be taken as one of those arguments that the Premier League should not have taken on this case like this.
The robustness of the league depends on it, a point further made by this strange, strange occasion.
Even if the football here was secondary to everything around it, the identity of the key players reflected so many of the arguments that are being made about how City have managed to construct squads like this; why the brilliance on display is so undercut by a case that is almost overwhelming.
Erling Haaland, one of the best-paid players in the world, whipped in a one-touch finish that fully showed his worth.
Jeremy Doku, supplying another of those exquisite finishes that have become part of an impressive repertoire, was a substitute who most other teams would love to have as a starter.
Rayan Cherki then danced through the wreckage in a manner that only added insult to injury.
Just before all of that, a Liverpool team already depleted by injury wilted once Ryan Gravenberch was sent off.
That was the key, coming at a crucial moment in the game.
It felt a very soft decision, for a second yellow card, if also a silly one from the midfielder.
Gravenberch had been playing well, offering the energy that Liverpool required.
Such sentences of course fit into the general football chat you would expect of a Super Sunday game and, in normal circumstances, you might talk about City gleaning profound confidence from such a commanding victory at Anfield.
Except, saying any of that seems ridiculous, since these were entirely abnormal circumstances.
Liverpool fans will still feel they had the last laugh, as they chanted “going down” at the final whistle.
It all felt typical of the day.
Rather than immediately feeling like a volcano, Anfield instead rose to a high heat. The sense was of long-term frustration rather than fury.
This crowd has generally intended to support its own rather than sing about others, but this match was obviously when an exception was to be made.
Aside from the liberal sprinkling of “cheats” and “shams” across banners, there were more novel ones like “And after all, you’ve robbed us all”, as well as one with pound signs to match the number of charges.
Among the chants were “going down” and “you know what you are”.
City gleefully adopted the latter themselves, however, among a few other responses.
While a certain type of defiance and gallows humour is obviously entirely understandable from City fans, the feeling does change when the response is abrasively supportive of the ownership.
This is not some calamity that has been imposed upon them, after all.
It comes from the club’s own acts, the words of its own people.
And they have, ultimately, been found guilty.
The process has concluded.
City are just opting to appeal that conclusion.
And, amid a lot of debate about what is “real” in all of this, the extent of City’s defiance felt another mockery of the league. Or, as one football insider said, “that they get to do this, to have this stand”.
More relevantly, it starts to complicate the argument around the fans also being victims, which they are.
The equation changes if you’re this abrasive about it after the fact, especially when the strident argument for so long has been that the club would clear their name.
Hope in an appeal isn’t the same as defiant belief in the ownership – especially given the potential implications of all.
There’s also a strange incongruity between that and the very visible throwbacks to a more innocent time, through the inflatable bananas.
One message indicates a will to get back to simpler times.
The other is right in amongst all of this.
By the end, the away fans were singing “we love you City”, as the Liverpool fans filtering out responded with “cheats”.
The Kop had by then emptied, the sound system playing Fleetwood Mac’s “Sweet Little Lies”.
Just one more moment that made this day entirely unserious – and everything around it still so serious.
