Manchester City are suddenly box-office in age of charge-rage and mega defiance | Barney Ronay
This is by far the most interesting this club have ever been and they faced PSG, a kind of twin entity in all this as oil state glove puppets
Another day, another note of unreality; another vivid and brilliant spectacle that feels as though it has been whipped together out of meringue and burnt sugar. Time flies when the world is closing in. Two weeks on, this was Manchester City’s first home game since the verdict dropped, the irrefutable body of evidence was refuted, and English football entered its state of ongoing whiplash.
In the stadium this felt like watching someone dance while the world burns. This was a brilliant game pegged out around six goals, a collapse, a comeback, posts and bars struck, saved penalties, and a performance of state-of-the-art omni-football from this brilliantly high-grade Paris Saint-Germain team.
Pep Guardiola was even present in the stands, looking oddly haunted beneath a flat cap. Looking in fact quite a lot like Vincenzo Pentangeli in The Godfather Part II, the mute Sicilian brother who turns up in the courtroom and has a congressional hearing dismissed just by glowering wordlessly. Well, it’s the best defence anyone’s come up with yet.
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City’s players gave everything against superior opponents. The crowd roused itself from a state of sullen defiance to a state of angry defiance and occasionally even jubilant defiance. At times there was even a resurgence of that euphoric state of the glory years, the collective cognitive dissonance, hard white lights blotting out the sky, nothing out there beyond the spectacle. Take me to the place where you go, where nobody knows if it’s night or day.
There has been some talk in recent days about whether City’s games should be broadcast or even played at all. Is it all just empty, dystopian, an insult to sport? On the other hand, this is by far the most interesting City have ever been. It has been a cold project at times, frictionless football, the hand of a sovereign state at your back, victory without content.
Well, not any more. In the age of charge-rage and mega-defiance City are suddenly total box office. No more denials. Just go full Nosferatu. Embrace the darkness. Smear and accuse. Say, yeah OK we did cheat but the real cheat is the rules. This is all deeply gripping main character stuff, performative villainy, like Milton’s Satan in Paradise Lost, who sees the rules, rejects them, and ends up stealing the whole show from boring old rules-obsessed God.
City had perfect opponents here in PSG, who are a kind of twin entity in all this, brothers by another mother. Oil state glove puppets. Twice punished for cheating the financial rules.
But then, nothing explains the world like football. Abu Dhabi versus Qatar in Manchester. Lawfare. Tribal populism. All of it played out against the background of an embattled British prime minister, vultures already picking away at his entrails. Andy Burnham always promised to offer something fresh and different. To be fair he could still be the first prime minister hounded from office because somebody really needed to overpay for Kalvin Phillips.
The Etihad was a febrile place before kick-off. There was smoke, fury, a crackle in the air, and a pointedly heartwarming club heritage video on the big screen, local people looking happy and real, legacy footage of skinny-legged Alfs and Herberts, men with comb-overs in brown overcoats. Then through to the stolen glory years, trophies lifted, last-day title pippings, with the final shouted caption: “The blues are in dreamland.” Yeah. That doesn’t quite sound how you think it does.
Mainly there was a chance here to boo everything and everyone. The PSG team was booed. The singing of the PSG fans was booed. The Champions League anthem was obliterated. A City Till I Die Tifo was hoisted because yes, death must come into it. The early songs were “City’s going down with a billion in the bank”, and the classic “Gary Neville is a wanker, is a wanker”. Whatever happened to not looking back in anger?
But then, this has always been a project defined by defiance, the raised fist, the punkish V-sign, even if this involves prostrating yourself for the benefit of an inherited billionaire monarchy. The banner that read “Sheikh Mansour, Manchester thanks you for 10 great years” is still there. It was always an odd sentiment. Why were you thanking him back then when the whole thing was self-funding, a sponsorship miracle, beloved of airlines and phone companies? It makes more sense now. Of course. He’s paying for it all.
PSG were brilliant here early on, Luis Enrique was up on his feet in rumpled black tracksuit bottoms and hoodie, handsomely ravaged, like a Jedi out for a jog. And by the time Vitinha made it 3-0 on 32 minutes the score could have been anything. The midfield was suffocating in and out of possession. Désiré Doué was sublime on the left, all fast-twitch spring and balance, like a squirrel on a branch.
Related: Quickfire Doué and Dembélé inspire PSG to wild win at Manchester City
And for long periods City’s fans fell silent. You can’t blame them. The sense of grievance may be misdirected, but it is undeniably real. If City’s fans are angry about being overlooked, conspired against, forced to kneel before some distant overlord, well, that’s because they are. Welcome to the world, welcome to east Manchester, welcome to the lighted empty boxes of New Islington, rental engines for an overseas state.
All that love, hunger, connections has been hijacked in the most tantalising way, sold back to you in the form of stolen glory. Please don’t put your life in the hands of a petro‑state propaganda machine, who’ll throw it all away. Here at least they had a brilliant game, players that gave everything, and spectacle if not victory.
