After the most tumultuous fortnight in club history, Manchester City’s players were delighted for the chance to let their football do the talking against Liverpool.
But while the emphatic 3-0 win keeps Enzo Maresca’s team atop the Premier League standings with six victories from six starts, the team’s return to action was always going to shine a spotlight on the toll their continued presence in – and domination over – the league is taking.
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Writing on X, Piers Morgan branded the result, and the sight of City fans celebrating their team’s triumph, as a “total farce”.
“What happens if they win the title again this season? That could ruin the Premier League,” he wondered.
In print, the reaction was even fiercer – exacerbated further by the win coming against the Reds, who suffered a string of close seconds behind City during their years of dominance when the majority of the breaches occurred.
“The team belonging to the club branded the biggest cheats in English sporting history embraced their shame and laughed in the face of the scorn of the rest of football,” Oliver Holt wrote for The Daily Mail.
“City defied the revulsion that has been visited upon them and waltzed past Liverpool, the team which suffered most from their cheating.
“It was another bad day for a game reeling from what City have done to it … for now, it seems, cheats do prosper.”
As for the joyous reaction to fans who remain ardent in support of their club and its Saudi-owned management, Holt wrote: “They may indeed be going down but they are going to enjoy life while they do.”
A near-identical view was taken up by Oliver Brown in The Telegraph, with a near-identical headline: “Cheats prosper”.
Dubbing the 3-0 result a “hollow victory”, Brown also had City supporters firmly in the gun.
“Naturally, their players and fans milked the moment, celebrating as if this 3-0 victory somehow conferred legitimacy on the idea of fraudulently spending your way to glory,” he wrote.
“Inflatable bananas, an ecstatic Noel Gallagher, obscene chants at Gary Neville as he appeared pitchside for Sky Sports: it was a celebration of truly monumental conceit.
“Shame? City seem not to know the meaning of the word.”
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The reception with which City fans and players alike were greeted at Anfield was every bit as hostile as expected.
Furious Liverpool supporters screamed abuse as their City counterparts arrived, under heavy police escort.
Banners pockmarked the stands, from the simple “Cheats” to the more creative “Shamchester” and “What’s the $tory, tainted glory”.
In response, City fans unveiled an army of inflatable bananas – a traditional club act to signify supporters’ defiance in the face of a period in which they toiled away in lower leagues.
“You cheating bastards, you know what you are,” Reds fans bellowed as the City team bus, which took an alternate route to avoid the worst of the brickbats, arrived.
They added en masse during the game “You’re going down, going down, going down”.
Most cutting of all was the cry of “You haven’t won a trophy since 1976” – with every title since coming under the current owners.
For former greats paid to commentate on the game, the unease – and the sense all of it could prove meaningless when a final verdict arrivals – was palpable.
“If you could take me off Manchester City games moving forward for a few months until the verdict’s been heard, I’d be absolutely delighted,” Gary Neville told Sky Sports.
“We should be eulogising over them (City) without a ‘but’ or any hesitation, but there is that thing in the back of your mind.
“They’ve obviously dominated the game in the last 20 minutes … at the end of the game, it’s quite hard, because you’re imaging that if these guilty verdicts are confirmed in January, February, that Manchester City are not going to be in the position that they’re in.
“There’s going to be a huge cloud hanging over the whole league.
“This is really bad for the Premier League, and it’s going to continue for a few months.”
Liverpool great Jamie Carragher, meanwhile, urged decisive action, saying the league is approaching a critical flashpoint.
“There’s no way Manchester City can be allowed to win the league this year if they’re found guilty. That cannot happen,” he said on Sky.
“This has to be done before the end of the season. There’s no way this can carry on.”
Amid the barrage of criticism, there was still the odd island of praise – mostly directed at the players, who defied the uncertainty hanging over their club and their own futures in their most emphatic display yet this season.
The Timeswriter Martin Samuel lamented: “There may some time soon be a day of reckoning for Manchester City, but this was not it”.
“The trip to Anfield was supposed to be humbling; an afternoon of intense emotion when football would pass a brutal judgment on the miscreants,” he wrote.
“Instead, City delivered a cold assassination. This was a stiletto of a performance. Spectacular, vicious, absolutely terrifying. They took Liverpool apart in the second half, leaving Anfield stunned and bitter as the blue end crowed.
“City will for ever be the cheats, even if they win their appeal, because the court of public opinion will not be swayed.
“Yet such was their brilliance here, it almost made any neutral wish they could believe again.
“This is how the game should be played, arguably the finest performance by any team this season.”