WHATEVER happens now, Manchester City’s trophies have been rendered meaningless, whether they are officially stripped of them or not. In a way it might be best to let them keep them – the pots serving as reminders in the club museum, novelty exhibits of this weird time they pretended to be one of the best teams in the world, but, as it turned out, weren’t.

This has been a heady week in which the 115 charges of alleged financial antics ended in a near-universal guilty verdict – and we all devoted some time to imagining fantasy sanctions for the punishment City should now face.

A demotion. National League. Away to Boreham Wood. Or perhaps a guarantee that we no longer have to listen to the endlessly creamy praise of Pep Guardiola, as if his record at City was all down to brainiac wisdom, and not eased by the ability to spend whatever on whoever and the inheritance of a club transformed by blunt, cold cash.

That doesn’t mean he knew anything untoward was going on, but near-unlimited funds must have been a pleasant surprise. To that end, we must question what the football press have been doing for the past decade or so.

Is it their job to tell you in lots of different descriptive ways how somebody slotted in a goal? Yes. Is it their job to ask questions at post-match press conferences? Yes. Is it their job to analyse what a team might need in the transfer market? Yep. But surely it was also their job to enquire forcefully about what everybody suspected was happening in front of our eyes. Manchester City, it seems, were hiding in plain sight, but would asking difficult questions have meant no pass for the big game next Sunday afternoon?

There have been some honourable exceptions, but how City got to the top should have been a natural source of far greater curiosity.

The same goes for Match of the Day and Sky Sports – the latter, remember, you pay to watch what might now be described as a “sham” league. All we ever heard was Alan Shearer say a great goal you just watched was a “great goal”.

This is a great City team, we were told endlessly, the best – without anybody really questioning why.