Liverpool v Man City: Forget the Yellow Wall, City Are Walking Into a Red One

Manchester City have played in some intimidating stadiums over the years. They have faced Real Madrid at the Bernabéu, hostile European nights and Borussia Dortmund in front of the famous Yellow Wall. Yet it is difficult to imagine many receptions quite like the one awaiting them at Anfield on Sunday.

Liverpool against Manchester City hardly needed another storyline. For much of the past decade it has been one of the defining fixtures of English football, but this weekend's meeting arrives with something much bigger hanging over it.

City will walk out at Anfield for their first match since an independent Premier League Commission found the club guilty of serious breaches of the league's financial rules during the period from 2009/10 to 2017/18. City have appealed the decision, meaning the process is not finished, but the verdict has nevertheless dominated football discussion across television, radio, newspapers and social media.

For 90 minutes on Sunday, all of that noise is going to be concentrated into one football stadium.

Two unbeaten teams, but very different starts

Strip away everything happening outside football and this is already a fascinating Premier League contest.

Manchester City went into the international break top of the Premier League with a perfect record of five wins from five, scoring 13 goals and collecting 15 points. Liverpool were sixth with nine points, unbeaten themselves but having drawn three of their opening five league matches.

City's last game before the break was extraordinary even by their standards. They beat Sunderland 5-3 at the Etihad, continuing a run which had also included victories over Manchester United, Coventry City and Crystal Palace in the league, alongside wins in Europe and the League Cup.

Liverpool signed off in rather more controlled fashion with a 1-0 victory away at Bournemouth. That extended their unbeaten start in all competitions, although the three league draws explain why there is already a six-point gap between the teams.

There is also a recent score to settle. City won all three meetings between the clubs last season, including a 3-0 league victory at the Etihad, a dramatic win at Anfield and a thumping 4-0 FA Cup quarter-final victory in April.

Ordinarily, those would be the talking points.

This week, they barely scratch the surface.

The charges have swallowed the build-up

For years we talked about Manchester City's "115 charges". That shorthand has almost become part of football's vocabulary, although the eventual case involved well over 100 individual alleged rule breaches across different categories.

What matters now is that the independent Commission has delivered its core decision. It found City guilty of all charges concerning serious breaches of the Premier League's financial rules and guilty of the majority of the allegations relating to their failure to co-operate with the investigation.

The Commission found that between 2009/10 and 2017/18 City used what it described as "sham" commercial arrangements which artificially inflated revenue and reduced costs, filed accounts which did not accurately reflect the club's finances and significantly breached Premier League and UEFA spending limits. City have appealed the ruling.

The eventual punishment is another matter and remains to be determined.

For now, however, the footballing consequences begin at Anfield.

Of all places, it had to be Anfield

There probably isn't a worse ground for Manchester City to visit immediately after this verdict.

Liverpool supporters do not view City's period of dominance from a distance. They lived through it.

In 2018/19, Liverpool produced an extraordinary 97-point Premier League season, losing just once, and still did not become champions. City finished with 98.

Then came 2021/22. Liverpool reached 92 points and again finished second to Manchester City by a single point.

That history matters.

Whatever ultimately happens through City's appeal and whatever punishment eventually follows, plenty of Liverpool supporters will look back at those title races and wonder what might have been. Every point, every goal and every tiny advantage suddenly becomes part of a much bigger argument.

That is why Sunday's atmosphere could be extraordinary.

Gary Neville has already predicted banners, chanting and a reception unlike anything City have previously experienced at Anfield, describing what awaits them as a potentially "brutal day". Merseyside Police have also confirmed that an appropriate policing operation will be in place.

Anfield is intimidating enough when Liverpool need a European comeback.

This time there is anger attached to it.

Forget Dortmund's Yellow Wall. On Sunday, City are walking into a Red Wall.

The unpopular 0.1% opinion: I think the rules are the bigger problem

Here is where I will probably lose 99.9% of readers.

I understand the anger towards Manchester City. An independent Commission has made extremely serious findings against the club, and those findings cannot simply be brushed aside because people enjoy watching the football team.

But I also believe the bigger question football should be asking is whether the financial system itself has been designed properly.

My problem has always been simple.

For decades, the biggest clubs in English football were allowed to use their enormous financial advantages to remain the biggest clubs in English football.

Manchester United could generate more money than almost everybody else and spend accordingly. Chelsea's transformation under Roman Abramovich changed the financial landscape dramatically. Liverpool, Arsenal and other established giants have all enjoyed periods in which their financial power dwarfed much of the division.

Before City's Abu Dhabi takeover even happened, the financial divide was enormous. In 2008, Manchester United had turnover of around £210 million, Arsenal £200.8 million, Chelsea £190.5 million and Liverpool £133.9 million. Compare that financial firepower with the clubs occupying the bottom half of the Premier League at the time and English football was hardly operating on a level economic playing field.

Nobody seriously argued that Manchester United should only be permitted to spend what Wigan Athletic could afford.

The richest established clubs could exploit the commercial advantage created by decades of previous success. Bigger stadiums produced more revenue. Global supporter bases produced more revenue. Sponsorship produced more revenue. Champions League participation produced more revenue.

Success created money and money helped preserve success.

Then Manchester City acquired owners capable of breaking into that circle and suddenly football became obsessed with how much a club should be allowed to spend.

That is the contradiction I struggle with.

If spending creates an unfair advantage, hasn't it always?

This isn't an argument that rules should simply be ignored. Every club entering a competition agrees to its regulations and those regulations have to mean something.

It is an argument about whether those regulations are actually good for competition.

If Manchester United can spend £100 million because Manchester United generates £100 million, but another club has an owner prepared to invest the same amount and is prevented from doing so because its historic revenues are smaller, what are we protecting?

Competitive balance?

Or the existing hierarchy?

Financial sustainability rules have a perfectly legitimate purpose when they stop reckless owners loading clubs with unsustainable debts and walking away. Football has seen enough clubs pushed towards disaster to understand why safeguards are necessary.

But there is a huge philosophical difference between preventing an owner from bankrupting a football club and preventing a wealthy owner from putting their own money into one.

That distinction is too often lost.

Chelsea spent heavily. Manchester United spent heavily. Liverpool spent heavily. Arsenal spent heavily. The numbers changed from generation to generation, but English football has never been financially equal.

City simply arrived with the resources to challenge the clubs which previously possessed the biggest advantages.

And everyone suddenly discovered financial fairness.

Football still came down to 11 against 11

This will be the part Liverpool supporters understandably dislike.

City's financial strength undoubtedly helped assemble extraordinary squads. Squad depth matters across a 38-game season. Recruitment matters. Coaching infrastructure matters. Money unquestionably matters.

But money did not physically put the ball into the net.

When Liverpool and Manchester City met, there were still 11 Liverpool players against 11 Manchester City players.

When Liverpool collected 97 points in 2018/19, City still had to collect 98.

When Liverpool collected 92 in 2021/22, City still had to find 93.

Those championships were ultimately decided on football pitches by players operating under the same Laws of the Game.

That does not erase financial rule breaches. It does, however, make the debate more complicated than simply drawing a line through City's achievements and pretending the football never happened.

You can believe Manchester City broke financial regulations and simultaneously question whether those regulations created a fair competitive structure in the first place.

Those positions are not mutually exclusive.

Anfield will not be interested in that argument

Try explaining any of that in the Kop on Sunday afternoon.

Good luck.

Liverpool supporters who watched their team produce 97 points without winning the league are unlikely to arrive carrying white papers on the philosophical merits of financial regulation.

They are going to be furious.

Every City touch could be booed. Every refereeing decision will carry an extra edge. Every Liverpool tackle will be roared. There will surely be songs, banners and references to the verdict throughout the afternoon.

More importantly, the hostility will be directed at a group of City players whose job is somehow to detach themselves from a controversy created far above their heads.

That may be City's greatest challenge.

Elite footballers are accustomed to hostile grounds. They are accustomed to abuse. City themselves have heard accusations and chants surrounding the charges for years.

But this is different.

Previously, they were allegations.

Now an independent Commission has delivered a guilty finding, even though City are challenging that finding through an appeal.

Anfield will know the difference.

The most watched game of the weekend

And somewhere beneath all of this, there is a rather important football match to play.

City arrive top of the Premier League with five wins from five. Liverpool remain unbeaten and have home advantage. Erling Haaland leads City's attack, while Liverpool have the opportunity to cut a six-point deficit and make an enormous early-season statement.

Yet the league table almost feels secondary.

Millions will tune in to see what happens before kick-off as much as what happens afterwards. The cameras will search the stands for banners. Microphones will pick up every chant. Every controversial incident will be magnified.

Manchester City's players will probably never experience another away game quite like it.

The Yellow Wall in Dortmund is famous for its size, colour and noise.

The Red Wall awaiting City on Sunday has something else.

A grievance.

Liverpool believe some of the greatest teams in their history were denied Premier League titles during the era now covered by the Commission's findings. City believe they have grounds to overturn the decision and have formally appealed.

I may be among the 0.1% who thinks football's financial rules deserve far more scrutiny than the clubs trying to challenge the established elite.

Anfield will emphatically belong to the other 99.9%.

And that is exactly why Liverpool against Manchester City on Sunday could be one of the most hostile, fascinating and heavily scrutinised Premier League games we have seen in years.

Liverpool v Manchester City Betting Tips: City to Silence Anfield?

After spending half this preview explaining why Anfield could resemble a Roman amphitheatre on Sunday, I am now going to do the sensible thing and back Manchester City to walk into it and win 3 to 1.

City are around 17/11 to win at the time of writing, with Liverpool roughly 8/5 and the draw 11/4. I fancy City quite strongly. They have won all five of their Premier League matches this season and, while the atmosphere will be ferocious, that could actually suit a City side with enough experience and technical quality to play through Liverpool when the home crowd demands they attack.

My correct score fancy is Liverpool 1 to 3 Manchester City. Liverpool are perfectly capable of scoring at Anfield, particularly with Alexander Isak leading the line, but if the match becomes stretched I think City have too many ways to hurt them. Liverpool cannot afford to let emotion turn this into basketball against a team containing Erling Haaland, Rayan Cherki and the rest of City's attacking talent. There are easier ways to spend a Sunday afternoon.

Rayan Cherki to Score Two or More

Now for the bet which may either make me look inspired or result in this paragraph being quietly deleted on Monday morning.

I fancy Rayan Cherki to score two or more goals.

There is some method behind the apparent madness. Cherki is being priced around 7/2 to score anytime in one current market, while predictive data gives him a healthy scoring chance against Liverpool. If Liverpool chase the game and leave spaces between midfield and defence, Cherki is exactly the type of player I want arriving around the penalty area.

Two goals is obviously a much bigger ask, so this is the speculative bet rather than one to remortgage the garden shed for. But if my 3 to 1 City prediction is right, somebody other than Haaland may need to get involved. With virtually every Liverpool defender likely to know where the Norwegian is standing at all times, Cherki could benefit from the attention Haaland attracts.

My fun bet: Rayan Cherki 2+ goals.

If it lands, I knew all along. If it doesn't, this was clearly written by someone else.

Haaland v Isak Goalscorer Odds

The obvious goalscorer battle is Erling Haaland against Alexander Isak, and the market unsurprisingly makes Haaland the more likely scorer.

Haaland is currently around 23/20 anytime, while Isak can be backed at approximately 13/8 anytime.

The first goalscorer market offers considerably bigger prices. Current prices have Haaland at 7/2 and Isak at approximately 5/1.

Those prices make sense. Isak has scored four Premier League goals already this season and carries Liverpool's clearest central threat, but Haaland remains Haaland. You can analyse movement, expected goals, defensive structures and tactical match ups for hours before eventually reaching football's most sophisticated conclusion: the enormous Norwegian bloke scores quite a lot of goals.

If I had to choose one, it would be Haaland anytime at 23/20. If you're looking for something bigger, Haaland first at around 7/2 appeals more than Isak at the shorter anytime price.

My Liverpool v Man City Bets

Manchester City to win, 17/11

Correct score: Liverpool 1 to 3 Manchester City

Rayan Cherki to score 2+ goals, speculative bet

Erling Haaland anytime goalscorer, 23/20

Erling Haaland first goalscorer, 7/2

City winning 3 to 1 with a Cherki brace would obviously be the dream result for this page. It would also make the final 20 minutes at Anfield approximately as relaxing for Manchester City's players as trying to explain Financial Fair Play to the Kop through a megaphone.

Odds are indicative and can change before kick off. Always check the latest prices before betting and only bet what you can afford to lose.