MANCHESTER City fans don’t really know what to do, so in the end opted for blow-up bananas.
Perhaps this shouldn’t have been a surprise given how skilled their club seems to be at inflating things.

Whether City return to the days when bringing pool toys to matches seemed more fun than actually watching their awful team will depend on their appeal, but for everybody else this wasteland is already here. You see, nobody really cared about the craft of Rayan Cherki’s skillful third goal against Liverpool because nobody really knew what they were watching at Anfield.

Was this a big three points for City? Or will it all be irrelevant if sanctions for their cheating are suddenly imposed?

Remember, people are paying for expensive TV subscriptions to watch a match which could be meaningless.

In the midst of this league bust by what looks like industrial rule-breaking, can reporters stop falling over themselves to earnestly remind everybody that City deny wrong-doing and are appealing? Of course, everybody must have the right to be seen as being innocent until proven guilty – but folks, they have been found guilty.

It’s for them to clear their name now and until then they are officially the cheats who ruined football.

Decent people would look at how the country’s favourite pastime – watching football – is being ruined by their unpunished appearances in the league each week, and for the greater good just suck up the sanctions and let us all move on.

But no – instead we are somehow supposed to accept that winning at Liverpool was the start of a redemption arc for the wronged men, some of whom joined a club when it was already public known that it was being investigated.

You have to wonder if there is some sort of indemnity clause in someone like Marc Guehi’s contract.

The England international could have signed for anybody, and he chose this.

This is why the “defiant City” narrative works for no one watching at home. Sky and the rest of the paid-for channels might find that out very soon.