Manchester City secured a 3-0 victory over Liverpool at Anfield on Sunday afternoon, handing Andoni Iraola his first defeat as Liverpool boss. The match was overshadowed by City's guilty verdict for 114 charges of breaking the Premier League's financial rules between 2009 and 2018.
'Freak match' and 'bizarre unreality'
Writing in the Daily Mirror, chief football correspondent John Cross noted: "At the final whistle, even the Liverpool fans struggled to muster another chant. Eventually, the Kop began to sing: 'Going down, going down' as the Manchester City fans celebrated up the other end with their giant inflatable bananas."
Cross added: "City just refused to follow the script. The anger was there. The atmosphere was furious, loud and red-hot. For so much of the day, the game was completely secondary."
The Independent's Miguel Delaney described the match as a "freak match" and wrote: "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."
Delaney added: "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."
Impact on the title race
Martin Samuel of The Times reflected: "And some will say this was a meaningless match, because of the sword of Damocles that hangs over one club. Nonsense. A trophy will be won at the end of this season. Maybe not by City — we shall see — but by somebody."
Samuel noted: "So results still matter, points still matter, and Liverpool now trail Arsenal by six of them. This was supposed to be the fixture that would put City in their place yet, if anything, they left Merseyside with renewed vigour."
Samuel also highlighted the impact of Ryan Gravenberch's dismissal: "Gravenberch’s dismissal made a difference, of course it did — it was goalless when he was shown a second yellow card for a foul on Jeremy Doku — but that is also not the only explanation for what followed. City’s finishing was exceptional, their control total, their passing exquisite, once given the opportunity."
Liverpool's squad limitations exposed
Ian Herbert of the Daily Mail wrote: "Even on this day, Liverpool were exposed for the squad limitations which come of not having 'fantasy football' money, as Jurgen Klopp once described City’s outlay."
Herbert noted that Lewis Koumas almost scored a memorable goal, standing near where Steven Gerrard's slip against Chelsea handed City the title 12 years ago, but it was Erling Haaland, "a player handed a £525,000-a-week, nine-year contract, 21 months ago, who scored instead."
Herbert concluded: "There were no winners on this day."
The ECHO's own verdict stated that Liverpool fans responded to City's chants with a chorus of "You're f****** cheats!" and that "Pending appeal, of course, it was an entirely fair riposte from the Reds' fans."
The verdict added: "Weapons-grade cheating for nearly a decade cannot be 'punished' by a slap on the wrist or a fine for a club who have been bankrolled by the impossible wealth of Abu Dhabi for nearly 20 years."
It concluded: "If the Premier League's redacted, 40-page core decision, published late last month, holds firm after City's appeal is heard, an enormous, unprecedented punishment must follow. If not, then what is it exactly we are all doing here?"
