What Kind Of Villain Will Manchester City Be?

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.

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