Several times over the weekend, the same refrain escaped from the lips of various football broadcasters and analysts, who suggested that the struggle for the Premier League title this season has already become a ‘two-horse race’.
The comfort of denial, especially in a multi-billion-pound industry, is a powerful coping mechanism.
Maybe those broadcasters were talking about Arsenal and Brighton as the leading contenders for honours and, if that is the case, I apologise for my mistaken assumptions. Because if there is going to be a two-horse race for the title, neither of those horses should be carrying the colours of Manchester City.
City have indeed started the season in stunning form. Even by their own exalted recent standards, winning their opening seven league games, with Pep Guardiola gone and a new manager in Enzo Maresca at the helm, is an impressive feat. But it does not remove the shadow that hangs over the club. If anything, it lengthens it.
Perhaps it has been obscured by the wall of whataboutery, obfuscation and risible petro-state propaganda about a ‘red cartel’, but late last month, City were found guilty by an independent commission of the vast majority of 115 charges of financial wrongdoing levelled against them by the Premier League.
In any vaguely functional sports league, that would remove City from consideration for challenging for the title this season. Their punishment should have been handed down already and, given the scale of their cheating, that punishment would inevitably have taken them out of the race for the title.
In any vaguely functional sports league, the guilty verdicts against Manchester City would remove them from consideration for challenging for this season’s Premier League title
Their punishment should have been handed down already and, given the scale of their cheating, that punishment would inevitably have taken them out of the race for the title
The timeline of the case against City has been so tortuous and protracted that there is already uncertainty and pessimism about quite how long the rest of football will have to wait for the decision about what sanctions City will face and how long it will take to reach a judgment on the appeal they have launched.
It is unlikely, sources close to the process have told me, that City will face a doomsday scenario of being expelled from the Premier League and forced to start again in League Two at the beginning of next season.
Expulsion would plunge both the Premier League and the EFL into an unprecedented kind of chaos. It would be self-defeating.
It is thought that the Premier League are pressing for City’s punishment to be announced before the result of their appeal, which is unlikely to be decided before the end of January. Soundings from insiders suggest the most likely punishment is a swingeing points deduction which will ensure City’s relegation to the Championship, plus a huge fine.
It is also possible that the punishment would include a further points deduction that would effectively confine City to the Championship for at least one more season. The EFL would not be obliged to accept that sanction for one of their clubs but it is probable that they would.
From there, City should be allowed to rebuild. The intransigence and arrogance of City’s owners have hardened opinion against them but they are already facing the kind of ignominy that will stain them for many years to come.
It is time for those imposing the punishment to try to find a solution that represents middle ground.
There is very little point in pursuing a Treaty of Versailles-type punishment. The desire to humiliate the defeated might satisfy a base instinct but it does very little for the future well-being of the body politic. City must be punished, of course, but they must also be given a pathway towards rehabilitation.
Soundings from insiders suggest the most likely punishment is a swingeing points deduction which will ensure City’s relegation to the Championship, plus a huge fine
Yes, there is a blood-lust among some for City to be cast into the outer reaches of the football pyramid, but if that were done mid-season it would effectively void this campaign
Yes, there is a blood lust among some for City to be cast into the outer reaches of the football pyramid – Steven Gerrard, the former Liverpool captain, was candid in his hope that City be made to ‘suffer’ for what they have taken away from other teams and their supporters – but if that were done mid-season, it would effectively void this campaign.
If City were expelled from the Premier League, where would they play for the rest of the season? Would the club just be put into hibernation for six months? All their results preceding their expulsion would have to be made null and void. It would satisfy a desire for vengeance but at the cost of the wider health of the league.
It would also punish City’s supporters a disproportionate amount. This should not be about punishing City’s fans. It is about punishing the club’s ownership, which, the independent commission decided, was the author of the sustained period of cheating that gave City an unfair advantage over its rivals.
It is in that realm – and not in relegation to the Championship – that the most serious threat to the future of the club exists. Because, if City’s appeal fails, it is hard to see how a regime found guilty of such egregious deception could possibly be allowed to remain as custodians of the club.
If they did remain, it would fatally undermine the authority and purpose of the Independent Football Regulator. There is already some scepticism about quite how much power the regulator really wields.
If Sheikh Mansour and his cronies were allowed to continue, the credibility of its chairman, David Kogan, would be shot to pieces.
But then how do City survive without the Abu Dhabi United Group? How do they survive without the hundreds of millions in revenue that City now insist came directly from the Abu Dhabi government? Would another buyer step forward to rescue a club whose image has been so badly tainted?
The only clear answer to that is that the longer it takes to punish City, and the longer it takes for the result of their appeal to be decided, the more damage it does to a league paralysed by uncertainty and denial.
Arsenal should take criticism as a compliment
No team plays well every week and on Sunday, Arsenal did what they had to do and got out of Nottingham with the three points they came for
Arsenal did not play well against Nottingham Forest on Sunday afternoon. But they won the game at the City Ground 1-0 and moved back to within three points of Manchester City at the head of the table. Given the guilty verdicts returned against City recently, that effectively puts Arsenal top.
So I don’t agree with the feast of hand-wringing and the wail of lamentations about the quality of their football. No team plays well every week and at Forest, Arsenal did what they had to do and got out of there with the three points they came for. That is sometimes what the best teams do.
I saw them against Lille in the Champions League at the Emirates last week and some of the football they played in the second half of their 3-0 victory made the heart sing.
We grow bored quickly with a team that wins and wins: Arsenal should take the criticism coming their way as a compliment.
