Manchester City survived a hostile reception at Anfield in their first match since a guilty verdict on widespread financial impropriety, but a 3-0 win over Liverpool highlighted the uncertainty that surrounds the Premier League season.
Enzo Maresca’s men are sitting pretty at the top of the table with six consecutive wins, including away victories at their two biggest rivals after also beating Manchester United last month.
Yet those points could count for nothing unless City successfully appeal the findings of an independent commission that found them guilty of more than 100 Premier League charges.
Liverpool’s Bradley Barcola, top, clears Manchester City’s Matheus Nunes during their match in Liverpool, England, on Sunday.
Photo: AP
No sanction has yet been decided. However, if City’s appeal fails, a severe points deduction that could lead to relegation or even expulsion from the English top-flight is on the table.
There is even the prospect of three Premier League titles City won between 2009 and 2018, the period to which the charges relate, being stripped.
For a league that frequently boasts of its huge global audience, the prospect of an appeal process dragging on for months, leaving a question mark over every City result and what it means for other Premier League clubs, is a damaging one.
“This is not good for the Premier League right now. That’s what I’ve just recognized today,” former Manchester United captain turned pundit Gary Neville told Sky Sports. “This is really bad for the Premier League and it’s going to continue for a few months.”
Liverpool boss Andoni Iraola said that “the uncertainty is not good for anyone”.
Defeat leaves the Reds nine points behind City, down in ninth in the table.
Even if Liverpool turn out to be not strong enough to challenge for the title, the three points lost on Sunday could be vital in the battle for a place in the Champions League.
Sanctions against City could have an impact on the battle for relegation.
“That today, what does it mean going forward?” Former Liverpool defender Jamie Carragher told Sky Sports. “This has to be done before the end of the season. There’s no way this can carry on to the end of the season because we’re all getting kidded.”
Liverpool feel scorned by the revelations of City’s wrongdoing more than most, having finished second to them three times in the past 12 years.
City’s rivals say that the illegal spending during that 2009-2018 period built the foundations for a golden era that continues to bear fruit.
Liverpool were toothless without the injured Dominik Szoboszlai, Alexander Isak and Cody Gakpo on Sunday, forcing Andoni Iraola to give 21-year-old Lewis Koumas his Premier League debut up front.
By contrast, Maresca had the luxury of bringing Jeremy Doku off the bench early in the second half in a substitution that transformed the game.
Moments later the Belgian winger provoked a second yellow card for Ryan Gravenberch and Liverpool never recovered.
Doku had a hand in the first and third City goals, scored by Erling Haaland and Rayan Cherki, either side of his own sumptuous strike into the top corner.
That strength in depth has been fundamental in City’s rise to becoming the dominant force in English soccer since an Abu Dhabi-backed takeover in 2008.
As chants, banners, flags and scarves at Anfield showed, City stand accused of cheating their way to the top.
But the investigation has left the rest of the Premier League stuck in stasis, waiting for a case that began eight years ago to finally be over.