Manchester City travel to Liverpool on Sunday for their first match since an independent commission found the club guilty of the majority of the 115 financial charges brought against them by the Premier League, and they will do so in an atmosphere that promises to be ferocious.
The fixture carries a weight unlike any recent meeting between the two clubs. In December 2024, with City 2-0 down at Anfield, the home crowd chanted “you’re getting sacked in the morning” at Pep Guardiola, who responded by holding up six fingers to represent the six Premier League titles he won with the club. Those successes now feel tarnished to many following the commission’s verdict, though City’s current manager Enzo Maresca insisted on Friday that the club’s titles are “absolutely not” tainted.
City arrive top of the table with five wins from five in the Premier League this season, and Maresca will be eager to protect that 100% record.
For Liverpool and their manager Andoni Iraola, the game offers a chance to kickstart their own campaign. “It’s an exciting game,” Iraola said. “We are playing at home at Anfield against City that is top of the league, they have won all of their games. We will go for the game, they will go for it and it will be quite an open game and we have to be ready. I hope we will be at the level of the game, which will be high.”
Asked whether it was the kind of fixture he relished when he took the Liverpool job, Iraola added: “Yes, we are here to play this game. We know it’s going to be challenging. They are very good but we also are very good.”
It will be the first time since 2015 that this clash has been played with neither Jürgen Klopp nor Guardiola on the touchline, but a hostile atmosphere nonetheless awaits, and Tom Werner, the Liverpool chairman, will be in attendance.
The sense of grievance on Merseyside is not hard to trace. Liverpool finished second to City in 2013-14 under Brendan Rodgers and again in 2018-19 and 2021-22, when Klopp’s sides posted 97 and 92 points respectively but were still pipped to the title. John Achterberg, Liverpool’s goalkeeping coach under both Rodgers and Klopp, told The Athletic: “You think about the memories and the successes that you were wrongly denied. We won one Premier League title [in 2019-20], but it could have been four given that we missed out to City three times by such narrow margins.”
A verdict on City’s appeal is still awaited, and the club insists it is innocent. Iraola said the uncertainty was the hardest part to handle: “The worst thing probably is the uncertainty. No-one knows what’s going to happen. We have to focus on Liverpool and being the best club we can be, the best team we can be. That’s my challenge.”
Sunday’s expected hostility has precedent. In 2018, Liverpool were fined 20,000 euros by Uefa after supporters threw missiles at the City bus before the Champions League quarter-final first leg at Anfield; Liverpool went on to score three goals in 19 first-half minutes and knock City out. Earlier that season, in January, Klopp’s men ended City’s unbeaten league start with a 4-3 win at Anfield. Guardiola later described the ground in 2019: “There’s something about it that you will find in no other stadium in the world. They score a goal and over the next five minutes you feel that you’ll receive another four. You feel small and the rival players seem to be all over.”
Merseyside Police said an appropriate policing plan will be in place for Sunday but declined to go into specifics when asked by BBC Sport. There is a growing expectation that the team buses will be welcomed on arrival, and posters on social media have advertised a “Bus Greeting” on Anfield Road. It remains unclear whether a separate bus route could be taken, though that has happened previously at Anfield.
Inside the ground, Liverpool are renowned for their collection of banners and flags, and plenty are planned. The pre-match playlist may also be worth watching, while one social media post suggested fans could bring stacks of fake money. Liverpool’s stance is “business as usual”, with any talks with police and around safety concerns described as the regular meetings that would take place before every game.
The fact of the matter, however, is that this looks likely to be an occasion and a game like no other.