Manchester City travel to Anfield on Sunday carrying far more than their perfect league start. Their meeting with Andoni Iraola’s Liverpool will be the club’s first match since the Premier League found them guilty of 115 financial-rule breaches on the 29th, placing a heavy off-field case beside one of English football’s defining fixtures.
A changed rivalry at Anfield
For the first time since 2016, Liverpool and City meet without Pep Guardiola on the City touchline. Enzo Maresca, his successor, addressed his squad on Thursday with an upbeat message before the trip to Merseyside.
The match once stood as the central contest of the Guardiola-Jürgen Klopp era. From 2017-18 through 2024-25, every English league title was won by either City or Liverpool: City collected six under Guardiola, while Liverpool won one with Klopp and another under Arne Slot.
- On the 29th, the Premier League declared Manchester City guilty on 115 charges concerning financial irregularities.
- City subsequently explored the possibility of an agreement with the Premier League that would reduce any punishment.
- On Thursday, Maresca sought to lift the mood among his players before the Anfield fixture.
- On Sunday, City will play their first game since the ruling, facing Liverpool in the season’s first major meeting between the two clubs.
League pressure on both sides
City arrive in Liverpool at the top of the table, ahead of Arsenal on goal difference, having won every league match so far. A result at Anfield would preserve that early momentum during an unusually fraught week for the Etihad club.
Liverpool have their own need for a statement. Iraola’s side sit seventh, six points behind the top two, and will be without Alexander Isak and Cody Gakpo. Defeating City would offer the hosts both a lift in the standings and a familiar mark of authority against their principal rival of the previous decade.
Possible consequences for City
The sanctions available following the guilty verdict range from a financial penalty to a points deduction. The potential measures also include the removal of titles and, at the most severe end, expulsion from the competition.
Those consequences remain separate from Sunday’s contest, but they will shape the atmosphere around City’s visit to Anfield, where a new manager and a familiar opponent await amid the most serious chapter of the club’s Premier League era.
