Every weekend, football seems to serve up another controversy. It’s become one of the game’s few certainties. And whenever a club finds itself in trouble, rival supporters are rarely slow to celebrate.
When Eberechi Eze missed his penalty in last season’s Champions League final, Tottenham supporters celebrated as though their own team had won.
When Southampton were removed from the Championship play-off final, Portsmouth supporters had reason to celebrate. It’s part of football’s tribal instinct.
For some supporters, seeing a rival stumble can be almost as satisfying as watching their own striker score. This season, though, the reaction to one particular controversy has been different.
The reaction to City’s verdict
An independent commission found that Manchester City were guilty of all charges relating to serious breaches of the Premier League’s financial rules over a nine-season period, and of most charges relating to its failure to co-operate with the League’s investigation, and that this was not a misfortune or shortcoming.
It’s systemic cheating on a scale we have never seen before. So when the verdict was reached and revealed, the rest of the football world reacted differently.
For once, the reaction extended well beyond the usual rivalries. Supporters across the country wanted answers, and wanted the Premier League to act.
The final verdict could take years, due to Man City’s pushback and so-called “irrefutable evidence”. But as the saying goes, there is no smoke without fire, and 115 guilty verdicts is a hell of a lot of smoke.
There’s a certain arrogance the Premier League exudes, and rightly so. It’s the best league on the planet by some distance. To name a few reasons, it’s the most competitive, has the best players, managers and staff.
It’s an arrogance that has been earned and backed up year after year. For such breaches to have taken place over so many years raises questions not only about City’s achievements, but also about the league’s ability to regulate its own competition.
City’s players are still doing the talking
The anger was clear at Anfield, where City’s players were met with a hostile reception in the club’s first match since the findings were published.
The players who took to the field at Anfield were not responsible for the club’s financial conduct. Yet they represent a team whose status as one of Europe’s most attractive destinations has been built during the period now under scrutiny.
They have been on the receiving end of the boos and relentless criticism, and in fairness, they have responded in impressive fashion. City’s players have used the anger from opposition fans as fuel to keep winning, and it’s working.
Their football is well and truly doing the talking: they silenced Anfield, remained top of the table in the following games and have progressed to the Carabao Cup quarter-finals in the week.
United have problems of their own
Amid all of this, the celebrations from rival supporters have begun to fade. Manchester United supporters have more immediate concerns than celebrating the prospect of City’s downfall.
They are without a win in the Premier League since August and currently 16th in the table on just seven points.
There is turmoil on both sides of Manchester, albeit for very different reasons. The biggest question at Old Trafford is no longer what comes next for Michael Carrick, but who comes after him.
Carrick appears to be living from one result to the next, with every defeat bringing his position under greater scrutiny.
Eddie Howe, Julian Nagelsmann and Antonio Conte have all been linked with the job, but changing the manager will not, on its own, bring an end to United’s problems.
At United, managerial change has too often felt like the beginning of another cycle rather than the end of the previous one.
In Manchester, there is contrasting carnage, with neither club appearing to have an easy solution. The opening months of the season have created an unusual situation: neither club’s supporters can take much pleasure in the other’s troubles when their own reality looks just as bleak.
Usually, football gives supporters plenty of reasons to celebrate a rival’s misery. But with City facing the consequences of their financial-rule breaches and United struggling to find any direction of their own, Manchester’s two clubs have left their supporters with very little to cheer about.
Watch the tactics here
Written by Isabelle Martin
Leave a Reply