The lead-up to Sunday's game between Liverpool and Manchester City could not have felt more strange. Here were the two teams that have defined approximately the last decade of the Premier League, who have been each other's fiercest rivals while setting new standards for excellence on the pitch, meeting in a meaningless game. It was meaningless in a figurative sense, in that the primary reason for anyone tuning in was to see how the Anfield crowd would greet their guests in their first game since City was found guilty of 114 financial rule breaches. It was likely meaningless in a literal sense, too, as the points City gained from its 3-0 win are likely to be wiped out by whatever considerable punishment the Premier League eventually doles out.
Due to this year's supersized international break, Premier League fans have had nothing to do but use the last three weeks to stew in their feelings of grievance. Spend enough time thinking about those 114 guilty verdicts, and the £900 million in phony sponsorship money which City used to establish itself as lords of the competition, and it's hard not to come away feeling that everything about the last decade would have been different—especially for your team—if not for these fraudsters.
This game eventually had to be played, though, and once it started, so much of the venom that built up over the last few weeks seemed to dissipate. The visiting City fans, defiant and armed with their inflatable bananas, entered the stadium via police escort. The Liverpool fans provided plenty of roaring and chanting early on, but eventually there was just a soccer game to watch. And a fairly boring one at that: A cagey first half in which neither team created many chances ended 0-0, and the game was eventually decided by Ryan Gravenberch's sending off in the 62nd minute, which gave City's attackers all the space they needed to eventually put three goals past Liverpool's defense.
The scale of City's charges can make the consequences of the Abu Dhabi Group's scheming feel somewhat abstract. It can be impossible to trace the precise effect that City's unsanctioned spending had on the Premier League's recent history. Perhaps the scandal was made more concrete in the 56th minute of Sunday's game, when Jérémy Doku was subbed on for Iliman Ndiaye. Doku, one of the most electric wingers in the sport, was signed by City in the summer of 2023 for £55 million. Ndiaye, who was Everton's best player last season by some distance, was purchased this past summer for £65 million. Everyone who roots for a Premier League team is familiar with the sinking feeling that comes from witnessing such a substitution while their team tries to scratch out a result against City. Liverpool was out there with a 21-year-old academy prospect leading the forward line, and brought two teenagers off the bench in the second half. City, meanwhile, just swapped its prized summer transfer for a world-class rotation player, who needed just a few minutes to create one goal before scoring a beauty of his own. Neither Doku or Ndiaye arrived in Manchester during the period when City was guilty of cooking the books, but their presence there now, and the sense of invincibility that City's squad depth carries, can be understood as the ultimate result of all the success and commercial prowess purchased by those years of creative accounting.
But it takes more than spending, even the kind that flagrantly breaks the rules, to win games. Just ask Chelsea—or even Liverpool, which got nothing out of £116 million man Florian Wirtz on Sunday, and has yet to see much of a return on its £125 million investment in Alexander Isak. City has won eight of the last 15 Premier League titles not only due to the Abu Dhabi Group's unlimited wealth, but the ability to spend those ill-gotten gains wisely. That wisdom always shows up on the field, and did so again on Sunday. Even the most vicious anti-City partisan would have trouble not appreciating the skill that produced Rayan Cherki's goal, or Erling Haaland's smirk after scoring his. The charms of good soccer, played beautifully and confidently, are difficult to deny.
Every point City earns this season is almost certain to be wiped out by a forthcoming sanction, so what will they do until then? Can they go on quieting those hostile crowds, as they did on Sunday? Can they keep filling fans with righteous anger whenever they bring in £150 million's worth of players off the bench? Can they score goals so nice that it forces some kind of begrudging acknowledgement out of those very same fans? As everyone awaits the punishment coming down on Manchester City, it's hard to imagine a more successful villain than one that just keeps rubbing it in.
