Mirror Football
13 de outubro de 2026
Manchester City players showed that their undivided attention is on the beautiful game as opposed to the club's ongoing Premier League charges saga as they ran out 3-0 winners over Liverpool on Sunday. The Cityzens were met with boos and jeers as they stepped onto the hallowed turf of Anfield on Sunday for their first game back following the international break.
While Liverpool fans did their best to create a fortress-like atmosphere for the occasion, many brandishing banners referencing how they felt cheated through City's alleged breaches of financial rules spanning 2009 and 2018, it ultimately had very little impact on the game itself.
Ryan Gravenberch found himself sent off in the 62nd minute as a result of a clumsy second yellow card, with the proverbial floodgates opening shortly after. Erling Haaland broke the deadlock three minutes after Gravenberch's dismissal, with Jeremy Doku doubling the visitors' lead moments later.
Rayan Cherki put the game well and truly out of reach with around 10 minutes to play, with City returning to Greater Manchester with all three points. It comes as away from the field, Manchester City are making waves with regard to their ongoing dispute with the Premier League, as they look to prove their innocence.
But what's the latest news surrounding the saga? Mirror Football breaks it down...
As per The Lawyer, Manchester City are being advised by Mark Howard KC in their legal battle with the Premier League. A description of the king's counsel on the Head of Brick Court Chambers site reads: "He is widely regarded as one of the leading commercial silks at the bar, and has very wide experience of commercial and 'City' litigation, along with banking, professional negligence, fraud, energy and insurance and reinsurance.
"He also has significant experience of Competition Law and Administrative Law cases. He is an experienced advocate appearing before the Supreme Court and Court of Appeal frequently, as well as dealing with high value and complex first instance disputes.
"He also has great experience of appearing before arbitral tribunals, including ICC, FIA (F1 Sports) and BIT panels. He has appeared on many occasions in cases before the Courts of the BVI. Mark Howard has also appeared before the Takeover Panel."
Howard has previously worked with the likes of Roman Abramovich and Elton John, and received £9million to oversee a separate case in 2023. That is the highest-known fee ever paid to a barrister in the UK.
Everton also engaged Howard to lead their defence following an investigation into the Toffee's breaches of financial rules, which came to a conclusion earlier this year. Those breaches of PSR rules related to the 2021/22 season, with Everton ordered to pay Burnley £35m in compensation as a result of the Clarets suffering relegation that year while the Toffee's survived the drop by just four points.
Steven Gerrard has demanded a strong punishment for Manchester City, should they find themselves unsuccessful in their appeal. Speaking on the Overlap, the Liverpool legend explained how City need to "suffer" for their alleged wrongdoing, despite the club protesting their innocence.
He said: "Multi-year punishments, that would be my opinion. I’m not saying that’s the right opinion, but that’s just how I feel sitting here in this chair.
"I think putting them down to the Championship is not fair on the EFL. I don’t think it’s enough, because they’ll bounce back. You look at that team yesterday.
"Can you imagine that in the Championship? With all due respect, it’s not fair on the teams playing against City week in, week out. It’s not fair on the potential team that could be the third team to come up.
"I think it needs to be a transfer ban. I think it needs to be points over a period of time. And make them suffer like they’ve made everyone else suffer for the nine, ten years that they’ve done it for. That would be my opinion. But there needs to be an example set.
“I think if this was Liverpool, people would say, 'Oh, you’re talking nonsense.' Yeah, I would protect Liverpool. I’d protect the Liverpool fans, because it’s not the fans’ fault, and I’d protect the ex-players.
"I probably would react in the same way as the City players have, but in their quiet times, they know there needs to be strong punishments for the sake of the game, the Premier League, the brand, the world. I was in a box yesterday, it was full of foreign players.
"All they wanted to talk about was what City were doing. So this has had a ripple effect worldwide. It needs to be sorted as quickly as possible, and sanctions need to be strong so it doesn’t happen again.
"Because they were strong with Everton. They were strong with Nottingham Forest. We’ve seen examples of other federations being strong in other countries, so good luck to the Premier League, they have to be strong."
As per the Independent, discussions have already been held between Premier League executives regarding whether Manchester City should be dropped from the English top flight with immediate effect. One senior figure from a top-flight club has argued against such a strict sanction coming to fruition however, warning that the alleged breaches have manufactured a 'farcical' situation which has the potential to turn 'violent.'
The same report explains that 15 fellow member clubs would need to push to trigger such a vote, given that is the number needed in agreement to vote for expulsion. However, this seems highly unlikely to occur, given divided opinion among clubs.
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