Manchester City’s first game since being found guilty of breaking Premier League financial rules was met with an incendiary atmosphere at Anfield, where supporters lined the streets in anticipation of the visiting team bus. Pyrotechnics and raw hostility filled the pre-match build-up, with spectators climbing walls to secure a vantage point. The coach, however, entered from the opposite side of the ground, avoiding the confrontation that had been expected.
The manoeuvre defused what could have become a volatile situation. Tensions on Merseyside run deep: since City’s takeover in 2008, Liverpool have finished second to them on three occasions, although only one of those falls within the parameters of the investigation into City’s financial breaches. Liverpool supporters feel aggrieved, believing they would have won more trophies had City not circumnavigated the rules in order to sign elite players. Liverpool were punished in 2018 after their supporters launched missiles at the City team bus before a Champions League tie at Anfield, and the independent commission’s guilty verdict has only heightened the animosity.
Evidence of the verdict was easy to find on the stalls outside the ground. For £15, negotiable down to £10, supporters could buy a “Guilty 114” flag, which included an AI-generated image of the City squad in prison uniforms, or a “Cheats” banner styled after the Oasis logo. Many were content with the traditional half-and-half scarf to mark the occasion, while T-shirts carried a similar motif. More frugal supporters paraded homemade banners bearing the same blunt message around the ground.
There was a sense of injustice that thousands wanted to express. A single City fan, dressed in sky blue, stood among the sea of red, apparently unbothered by the commotion around him and left alone on the basis that he was not at fault. Social media chatter had suggested City merited a “bus greeting” on Anfield Road, and police were prepared for that eventuality. Officers flew a drone above the route the City bus was due to take and walked the streets filming those gathered as the noise and anger grew. Every vehicle was treated with suspicion, with theories of City subterfuge discussed in the crowds, but there was no decoy: the official team bus, in full livery, came up the other side of Anfield Road and around the back of the stand that bears the club’s name.
The Liverpool bus arrived shortly before 3pm to cheers, chants and clouds of red smoke that stung the eyes as the wind blew. Around an hour before kick-off, after City’s coach had been escorted up to the ground by a police motorcade, the visiting supporters were given their own escort across Stanley Park. Their message was defiant, backing chairman Khaldoon al-Mubarak with verses of “We’re Man City, we’ll cheat when we want”, alongside a banner reading “In Khaldoon we trust”. Away fans also waved inflatable bananas, a tradition dating back to the 1980s, and chanted “City’s going down with a billion in the bank” – a reminder that the club existed for 114 years before Sheikh Mansour’s investment and will continue to do so whatever happens over potential sanctions, with many supporters having already seen City drop to the third tier and win the Champions League.
There was only mild heckling from home fans within earshot, and like the bus’s arrival, it passed without incident. The cheering and jeering continued as the travelling supporters waited to enter the ground, but it was nothing out of the ordinary for a match between two rivals, and calmness descended. City were loudly booed as they walked out for their warm-ups, with every player’s name read out over the public address system receiving the same treatment. The bunch of bananas bouncing around in the away end’s small corner was little consolation before football took centre stage – and there City had the last laugh, winning 3-0 to silence the home support and maintain their lead at the top of the Premier League table. How long they stay at the summit, or in the league, once their punishment is served, nobody knows.