Neil Atkinson’s post-match review for The Anfield Wrap after Liverpool 0 Manchester City 3 in the 2026-2027 Premier League at Anfield…

I don’t know how to feel and I don’t know what it means.

I’m in The Glenbuck, post, as I always am for home games and normally The Glenbuck helps answer that question if it ever needs to be asked.

No one here really knows what it feels or what it means. 

What I do know is that I wouldn’t have appointed a referee from Greater Manchester for this game. But what I also know is that if I was Ronald Araujo I wouldn’t have gotten a yellow card for asking for a yellow card. For years the officiating in Liverpool/Man City games has felt against us but we could do without helping them.

But we would say that. I would say that. Referees though have also gladly visited the UAE for their job. To make a few extra quid.

And Manchester City have cheated. On a grand scale. The like of which has never been seen before.

This – here – is the problem. What do you know? What can you trust?

The second yellow could be a second yellow. The first is bullshit. But more – five minutes before the second yellow Elliot Anderson clambers all over Ryan Gravenberch with no intention to get the ball and no card comes.

It’s bad refereeing. Happens all the time. But this is why you don’t give the game to a man who lives in Greater Manchester in the context of enormous cheating.

What has gone on sours the current offering as it happens and in the future. Manchester City now have 18 points. They should be favourites for the title. They are a good side, full of good players and with an excellent bench.

What happens if they win it? What do you do? What do you say? Who do you get in touch with? Who do you trust? What is real? What does it mean?

—

This Liverpool side can lose 0-3 to this Manchester City. Key players in key positions are young and inexperienced. Today we’re missing Alexander Isak and Cody Gakpo upfront and Dominik Szoboszlai to boot.

When the teamsheet drops Liverpool lack firepower and options from the bench. Liverpool’s front four has six league goals between it.

In the summer your correspondent endlessly argued Liverpool were going into the first half of the season lacking a central-forward, lacking additional firepower. Today is a demonstration of that and the approach all year, with Florian Wirtz playing up and off has further underlined it. Wirtz today continues the theme of having lovely touches at times but not enough of them in general and not doing enough through any particular game.

It helps the Manchester City game plan. They knew what was coming and of course the right approach to backs against the wall is always, always, come out fighting and allow no errors. Nothing daft. Wait Liverpool out and have them have no moves. And maybe you get something cheap. Get one of theirs sent off. And let Haaland do his thing. Bang. There you go.

Liverpool are naive and unlucky.  Liverpool are inexperienced and blunt. Liverpool don’t take their chances or chances to make chances.

For the first 65 minutes Liverpool do well in this 2006 to 2009 shaped game where no one wants to risk anything because they don’t fancy the reward. No one wants to make the first mistake.

Liverpool are very good for the first 65 minutes, we defend well enough, at moments we pass quickly and accurately triangles into space. Muñoz and Barcola look tidy down the wings. Young Wirralian Lewis Koumas works hard despite the bullshit he’s getting from Guehi. He stands up for himself and for his start. But it’s still hard work without our more senior and experienced players. Hard work without cutting edge.

Ryan Gravenberch is arguably the game’s best performer. There are times where you’d like the ball to move faster but nobody wants to make the first mistake. In the end he does – gives Greater Manchester’s finest two reasons to show a yellow card and Kavanaugh gobbles them up.

City were always likelier to score the defining first goal. They had cutting edge and a bench whereas Liverpool had neither. 

And Manchester City have come to Anfield with a plan. Enjoy every boo. Make the most of all the shouts. Siege mentality. Batter them, rile them up, start something and hope for the best.

Haaland is laughing. They’ve let us have enough of the ball now, and with Liverpool down to 10, he’s free and easy. Three minutes later he’s in.

Maresca has a bench and he knows how to use it. He’s no fool and brings Doku on to outpace Ron Araujo. Minutes after Haaland he’s in too. He’s a good player, and Liverpool have neither the shape nor the manpower to control him now we are down to 10.

At the end of it all, I just feel empty and fractious. Watching the Manchester City players bounce over to their supporters, proud, feeling their feelings no doubt. But I don’t feel anything. After all, this is all a sham. This is all a made up effect of the sham. Their players are their players because of their sham.

—-

I was looking forward to the game but I hated that we had them first since the verdict.

In the run up to this game I got asked to do a lot of media. Whenever I did there was this thing that wouldn’t escape my brain:

“Why should Liverpool and Liverpool’s supporters be the conscience of football?”

Firstly, I don’t think we are that well qualified! But secondly the other clubs in the Premier League, the other supporters, need to stand up and be counted and say they don’t want to share the league with cheats. If it is us, it can become tribal in so many eyes and get washed away.

Fuck that.

The cheating has been demonstrated to be at an enormous scale and it calls so much of the competition into question.

Manchester City’s owners and senior executives aren’t people who should be allowed to run professional football teams and no other professional football team should be asked to share a league with them. I would love it if they sold. I would be the happiest man in the world if Manchester City supporters forced them out. Refused to stand for it.

But that doesn’t feel likely. So English football, beyond Liverpool playing a weird game, needs to stand up and say that they should not be an ownership any professional side has to deal with; that they cannot be trusted to stick to the rules and cannot be trusted to be open. Liverpool cannot be left to do it as a curiosity.

Enough was enough before a ball was kicked. This bit was written before a ball was kicked. (Mental Editor – worth pointing out whenever I have written any of these missives before a ball was kicked we have lost). But we need football, the rest of English football, to look after itself. Stop asking us to do it.

You do it. You sort it out. You say this is so unacceptable it cannot be allowed to continue. To the club owners: You have the self respect for the game you have wanted to be custodians of, the places you claim to love, the competition you have opted in to be part of.

Crack on. Enough is enough.

Neil

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