Finally, the international break is over. Honestly, it’s been one of those stretches where you almost forget what real football feels like—the actual rhythm of a Saturday or Sunday, the roar of a crowd, the moment a ball hits the back of the net. Instead, we’ve been drowning in talk about Manchester City. For what feels like three endless weeks, every headline has been about the 114 charges, about what the Premier League will do, about whether justice will ever actually arrive. And now, just when it all feels like a legal document wearing a football kit, we get this: Liverpool versus Manchester City. A match that would have been huge anyway, because it always is, but one that now carries a weight far beyond the usual three points. There is something almost poetic about the timing. We’ve spent weeks discussing City in boardrooms, in statements, in speculation about sanctions and points deductions. But the players don’t operate in boardrooms. The fans don’t get to vote on punishments. This match, this ninety minutes, is the only real place where any of this can be felt in the bones. Anfield will be loud, restless, desperate. And Liverpool will finally have a chance to take a swing at the team everyone is talking about.
But before we get too caught up in what this game means today, it’s worth remembering what this fixture has meant for the better part of a decade. Under Jurgen Klopp, Liverpool were the only team that truly understood how to hurt Manchester City. Not just occasionally, not just in a cup run, but consistently, season after season, in the league where City were supposed to be unbeatable. Pep Guardiola built a machine at the Etihad—a team that didn’t just win, but made everyone else seem like they were playing a different sport. And for a long time, it worked. City won the titles. City broke records. City began to look inevitable. But Liverpool under Klopp were never afraid of that machine. They outworked it, outthought it, outran it. They won a Premier League title. They won a Champions League. They went toe-to-toe with City in some of the most breathtaking title races the league has ever seen, pushing them to the very edge when everyone else was content to roll over. There was something deeply human about that Liverpool side. They didn’t have the limitless resources, the absurd depth, the sense that any weakness could be fixed by another massive signing. They just had a style, a belief, and a manager who refused to let anyone feel small. That’s why Liverpool versus City became the league’s defining fixture. It was never just about tactics or stars. It was about the idea that you could stand up to Goliath—and sometimes, if you were brave enough, you could grab him by the throat.
Now, of course, we’ve spent weeks talking about the scandal behind that dominance. And I’ll admit, part of me has wanted to be measured about it. To say that the charges are serious, that due process matters, that we should wait for the outcome. But there’s another part of me that is simply exhausted. Exhausted by the feeling that justice, if it ever comes, will arrive through a legal process we can’t control. We’re not the ones who get to strip City of their titles. We don’t get to hand down the punishment. We sit and read the reports, hear the arguments, watch the talking heads debate the fine print—and then we have to return to our ordinary lives, to our jobs, to our families, carrying the bitter taste of a competition that may never feel fully clean again. It’s frustrating. It’s maddening. And honestly, it makes you want to scream. But the one thing we can do, the one thing we’ve always been able to do, is fill a stadium and make our voices heard. We can make Anfield feel like a fortress. We can remind Manchester City, and everyone watching, that no matter what has happened behind closed doors, there are still people who care about the game with every inch of their hearts. This match is our small piece of justice. It won’t change the record books. It won’t fix the past. But it will be real, and it will be felt.
If I’m being honest, though, three points wouldn’t be enough. I know that sounds greedy. I know a win is a win, and given how strong this Manchester City side still looks under Enzo Maresca, a narrow victory would be something to celebrate. But there’s a part of me—the irrational, emotional, football-loving part—that wants something so much bigger. I want six goals. I want a scoreline so one-sided that people still talk about it years after the final whistle. I want City’s players to look around the pitch and wonder what just happened to them. I want commentators, even when Liverpool are playing midweek games months later, to pause and flash back to that night at Anfield and shake their heads in disbelief. I want three goals for every title that was stolen from us, and I want an extra goal on top of that, just as recompense for all the stress and sleepless nights and the endless, agonizing waiting. I want that scoreline repeated over and over again, every time we face them, in perpetuity, until the day I stop caring about football entirely. Is that reasonable? No. Is it fair? Probably not. But that’s what this rivalry has done to me. It’s made me greedy. It’s made me hungry. It’s made me want to watch the team that caused all this pain suffer, just for ninety minutes, in front of the world.
Of course, the reality is that the mountain on Sunday is steep. This City side isn’t just a collection of players from the past—they’re still dangerous, still capable of moments of brilliance, still managed by someone who knows how to win. And then there’s the injury situation. Andoni Iraola had to confirm what many of us feared: neither Cody Gakpo nor Alexander Isak would be available for the contest. With Gakpo, it made sense. Ankle injuries are tricky, and the way people talked about it during the break, it was hard to imagine him making it back in time. But Isak felt different. He was subbed off and sent home early as a precaution, and for a while there, it felt like maybe, just maybe, he would be okay. The hope was sky high. You could almost picture him leading the line at Anfield, chasing down every ball, making City’s defenders panic. Instead, Iraola is left with a real problem: two of his best attacking options missing, no senior striker beyond the academy graduate Lewis Koumas, and a decision to make about how to shape the attack. There’s a chance Iraola might decide that Koumas isn’t ready for a game of this magnitude. Which brings Florian Wirtz into the picture. The idea of Wirtz playing as a false nine is genuinely exciting. It would allow Liverpool to field all three of their brilliant central midfielders—Ryan Gravenberch, Alexis Mac Allister, and Dominik Szoboszlai—at the same time. You’d have Szoboszlai and Wirtz swapping positions, confusing the defense, with Mac Allister and Gravenberch anchoring the middle. It’s bold. It’s risky. It’s exactly the kind of decision that could either look inspired or explode in spectacular fashion.
In the end, I don’t envy Andoni Iraola. This is the kind of match that defines a season, and he has to make a choice without his two best attacking weapons. Play the kid, or reshuffle the whole system? Trust the midfield to control the game, or sacrifice some of that control for a more direct approach? There’s no obvious answer, and whatever he decides, someone will criticize him for it afterward. But that’s football. That’s what makes it so maddeningly beautiful. And when the teams walk out on Sunday, I’ll be watching through my fingers, praying that the plan works, hoping against all logic that Liverpool find a way to pull this off. It won’t erase the last few weeks. It won’t make up for everything that Manchester City might have taken from those who came before. But it would be a start. It would be proof that this team, this club, this global family of supporters, still believes in something bigger than charges and verdicts and legal procedure. So, for one afternoon, let’s put aside the cynicism. Let’s dream of six goals, of an unforgettable night, of a result that makes the whole world sit up and remember why Liverpool versus Manchester City means more than almost anything else in English football. For justice. For the global Kop. And for the beautiful, ridiculous, endlessly stubborn hope that football can still give us an ending worth waiting for.