What Is the Point of Watching Manchester City Win Now?

Manchester City went to Anfield, won 3-0 and celebrated like a club with nothing hanging over it. The rest of English football spent two weeks absorbing the verdict, while City acted as if it were a clerical error filed under someone else’s name. Their fans brought inflatable bananas, their staff brought smiles, and their manager shrugged.

A win only means something if the thing it is attached to means something, and right now City’s wins are receipts for a bill nobody has presented yet. So what exactly were we meant to applaud on Sunday?

It Took a Soft Booking and Ten Men to Break Liverpool

The game was goalless and edgy until the 62nd minute, when Ryan Gravenberch received a second yellow card for a late challenge on Jérémy Doku. Sky's Daniel Sturridge called his first, early in the second half, for a challenge on Elliot Anderson, a joke, and Micah Richards criticised it. Jamie Carragher also questioned the decision, while Andoni Iraola insisted it was never a yellow and that Liverpool had been the better side until then.

The first booking was controversial. The second left Liverpool with ten men, and City took full advantage. Haaland, Doku and Cherki scored within 13 minutes, exposing how hard it is to contain a side with that much attacking quality when a man is down. It was City’s second successive win at Anfield, but the circumstances will keep the result in the spotlight well beyond the final whistle.

Inflatable Bananas and a Victory Lap for a Club Found Guilty

City fans arrived with inflatable bananas, reviving a late-1980s tradition through a supporter group that reportedly handed out more than 1,000 of them. Liverpool’s fans answered with “Guilty 114” flags, cheat banners and chants. Gallows humour has its place, but this was a victory lap for a club an independent commission found guilty of serious financial breaches, including the use of sham sponsorship agreements.

At the final whistle, the players, coaching staff and supporters celebrated as if they had won a title. The club has appealed the commission’s findings and denies wrongdoing, but the celebrations did little to suggest that the verdict had changed its outlook.

The players say they are focused on football, and some will tell you they are playing to prove a point. But the commission’s findings have already made their mark. Jamie Carragher said he would be furious in their position, arguing that the case risks leaving their achievements with an asterisk.

The findings cover the period from 2009 to 2018, so City’s more recent medals are not automatically in question. But the institution paying the wages is. You suspect the fury will last until the first sanction lands and the agents start making calls, because a squad assembled from £50m options doesn't go down with the ship.

How Do You Praise a Team the League Is Still Deciding What to Do With?

Before the verdict, Sky told its pundits to stick to the facts. The commission’s findings are now public, and since then Roy Keane has said he would bin the medals, Ian Wright called it “cheating on an industrial scale”, Carragher has called for the titles to be stripped and the owners to go, and Gary Neville has argued that you cannot discuss City without addressing what is happening behind the scenes.

Then the same studio had to describe Doku’s curler and Cherki’s finish. Richards had said City needed to do their talking on the pitch, and they did. But the football cannot settle the argument hanging over the club. Michael Lee of Football365 argued that allowing the result to soften the conversation about the commission’s findings would be a mistake.

So what is the point of dissecting a City game? You can analyse the goals, the tactics and the performances, but the result sits alongside an unresolved legal battle. Richards said there were no winners here. Even if City win their appeal, the damage to the club’s reputation may prove harder to undo.

What Happens if City Win the League and Lose the Case?

The appeal hearing is expected to conclude by 24 December, with a decision due within 30 days, potentially in late January. A separate sanctions process is expected, and senior figures in the game want a punishment before the season ends. Sky has reported that rival clubs do not expect City to be in the Premier League next season if the appeal fails, though the final outcome and any sanctions remain unresolved.

City have won six of six and sit top of the Premier League. Their appeal is under way, and the sanctions remain undecided. The football is real; so is the uncertainty over what the club may ultimately lose.

That leaves everyone else in an uncomfortable position. City can win matches, collect points and chase another title, but the argument over what their achievements mean will follow them until the case is settled.

The Premier League still has to decide what comes next. Until then, every City victory carries the same question: how much will any of this count?

So…What Is the Point of Watching Manchester City?

Football needs neutrals. It needs people who tune in because they want to see great players, great teams and great football, even when they have no emotional stake in the result. City used to offer all of that. 

Why should anyone outside their own fanbase care now? Their results, for the time being, still count as legit, but the emotional investment is harder to justify when the club’s achievements sit under a cloud of financial misconduct.

Look at what happened to Juventus after Calciopoli. Look at Bordeaux, whose financial collapse sent a once-great club tumbling down the French football pyramid. The circumstances are different, but the damage to a club’s standing can outlast the scandal itself. 

Football supporters have long memories, and they do not owe any club their attention. City can insist that the football should speak for itself, but the football is inseparable from the institution that built the team. You cannot ask everyone to admire the finished product while telling them to ignore the questions about how it was assembled.

Perhaps City have complied with the rules in recent seasons. Perhaps their appeal will change the outcome of the commission’s findings. Neither possibility erases the damage already done to their reputation. 

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