Manchester City face hostile Liverpool reception after guilty verdict: matchday live – as it happened

12.04pm BST

That also signals the closure of matchday live for today. Thanks for following along, sending in emails and commenting below the line. Have a good one.

12.03pm BST

And just like that, we’re into the action. Mr Brewin has fired the live blog for the first of the day’s football, starting with Southampton v Portsmouth:

Related: Southampton v Portsmouth, Crystal Palace v Nottingham Forest, Hull v Everton: football – live

11.59am BST

The return of Glasner to Crystal Palace would have been a bigger story in any other weekend, but it is remarkable that he left Selhurst after a trophy-laden tenure and joined Nottingham Forest. You can have a tedous debate about the relative size of each club, but that definitely isn’t the upward step that Glasner would have been hoping for. ‘Big Vange’ (as my colleague John Brewin likes to call him) must have really rolled out the red carpet. With respect to Hull v Everton, I think I’ll be tuning into the game in south London at 2pm.

11.39am BST

We do of course have two other matches today. Here’s two of the ten things to look out for from our weekend preview:

Fiery reception for Glasner at Palace

Crystal Palace v Nottingham Forest, Sunday 2pm BST

All eyes will be on Oliver Glasner as he returns to Selhurst Park with Nottingham Forest on an afternoon that will be emotionally charged for both sets of supporters and in the boardroom. The Crystal Palace chair, Steve Parish, sought to defuse tensions last week when he urged fans to “buck the trend” by welcoming the manager who led the south London club to the first three major trophies in their history in the space of 12 months. “I would be mortified if he gets anything other than the roof blown off,” said Parish. But given the strength of feeling towards Forest and their owner, Evangelos Marinakis – who is still blamed by some for Palace’s demotion to the Conference League at the expense of Forest last season – many have still not forgiven Glasner for joining their rivals and could still make their feelings known when the Austrian takes his seat in the dugout before kick-off. Ed Aarons

Aerial battle of the dead-ball bosses

Hull City v Everton, Sunday 2pm BST

In Sergej Jakirovic and David Moyes, Hull City and Everton boast two of the more “pragmatic” managers in the Premier League. Renowned for their safety-first defensive styles, both teams are happy to surrender possession, rank among the top flight’s lowest sides in pass completion rates, and rely on rapid transitions and set pieces for a major share of their total expected goals. A game featuring two defences that pride themselves on their obduracy may well be settled by a well-delivered dead ball into a packed penalty area. While it may not be aesthetically pleasing, expect to see the massed ranks of defenders on both sides spending much of Sunday afternoon bracing themselves for rearguard action while peering towards the sky. The last time these sides met in the Premier League, Everton ran out easy 4-0 winners. A decade on, the aerial traffic is unlikely to be quite so one-way. Barry Glendenning

Updated at 11.55am BST

11.24am BST

I see debate is raging in the comment section, hi all! This made me chuckle:

stooze 11 October 2026 11:11am I still don't get it. You make a monumental mistake and then smile as you defend it, try to explain it away, while everyone is pointing fingers at you. Your very existence at the same table is under threat now, but you continue to double down, arguing with people that what they saw isn't what they saw. Just what in the hell...

...was Richard E Grant thinking???

11.21am BST

This email is signed off as being from Richard Goalsgalore, which I rate highly: “The Manchester City shenanigans make Wigan’s win of the FA Cup in 2013 all the more sweet. We played against all the odds and now we discover we seemingly played against all those, and even more odds. Well done Wigan. Weren’t we great.”

Updated at 11.23am BST

11.18am BST

I went to an Allsvenskan game last year and it was brilliant fun. It was a Stockholm derby between Hammarby and AIK, the atmosphere was great and despite Swedes telling me the standard wasn’t that high, the football was entertaining. I’d fully recommend a trip if football tourism floats your boat.

11.01am BST

For some light relief, here are the highlights of the game of the year. Brommapojkarna v AIK from the Swedish Allsvenskan yesterday, it was 0-0 at half time but finished 6-5 to Brommapojkarna thanks to a last-kick winner. Enjoy!

AIK 5-6 Brommapojkarna: highlights 10.54am BST

More correspondence! This one is from Morgan Blake: “Regarding the banner at Old Trafford (as per John Brewin’s excellent piece), it looks to me like a tape counter scrolling up from 50 to 51, so I think it is accurate. 50 years at the start of this season, 51 at the end of it. It’s nicely done in my opinion. As a Liverpool fan winning today still very much matters, even if only to provide catharsis. Like you said, it is a strange limbo period and may eventually be looked back on as rather empty and meaningless. But here, today, as a great man once said: ‘I will love it if we beat them.’ How likely that is, well that’s another matter!”

The email link is at the top of the page if you want to share your thoughts.

10.33am BST

Why we’re stuck with a Premier League in the clutches of the global mega-rich

Football, the world’s most popular sport, played by laws drawn up in London in 1863. The Premier League is the UK’s greatest soft power export. Premier League clubs are owned by a deputy prime minister of Abu Dhabi, the public investment fund of Saudi Arabia, a billionaire based in Monaco for tax reasons and a disappointing assortment of investors and private equity funds. And what, really, could be more British than that? Football truly is the national game.

What the Manchester City case has exposed is just how difficult it is to regulate some of the richest and most powerful bodies in the world. While the wait for the verdict was frustrating, it’s perhaps unavoidable given the possibility of legal objection at every turn when a leaked email from City’s in-house lawyer during Uefa’s action against the club had threatened to “spend 30 million on the 50 best lawyers in the world to sue them for the next 10 years”. You didn’t get that with Albert Alexander Sr or Peter Swales.

Jonathan Wilson’s latest column ahead of Liverpool v City:

Related: Why we’re stuck with a Premier League in the clutches of the global mega-rich | Jonathan Wilson

Updated at 10.33am BST

10.17am BST

We’ve had a few emails, keep them coming. Dave Estherby writes: “Two performances that will be vital to this afternoon’s shenanigans are that of Chris Kavanagh and the Merseyside plod; it’s gonna be spicy on the pitch and raucous in the stands – both of which are fine but it’s a pretty low bar these days and it could be very easy to lose control of the occasion and then do too much, or not enough afterwards. Game on!”

Karen Timms adds: “These are troubling issues indeed. Have read so much commentary and we, as City fans and one Mancunian in Australia, are arriving at a focus on the whole Premier League setup and the English mercantile attitude to it’s own culture. Also debating whether any individual who achieved prominence through City success and sailed on to glory is now suspect and ‘guilty’ by association. Former players, staffers, assistant managers? Overall sad and disappointed for the lifelong fans.”

10.13am BST

Maresca maintains almost total control as he follows Manchester City owners’ line

Enzo Maresca’s first public display since Manchester City were found guilty on virtually all counts of breaching Premier League financial rules was controlled – apart from the sole, and telling, slip-up of his very first answer.

In Thursday’s pre-emptive PR move, the club had Maresca tell their channels that he was aware of the “noise” around City. Fast forward 24 hours, and to a packed media conference of 45 attendees – around a threefold increase on the norm – at the Etihad Campus, the Italian was asked if this was dismissive of the anger felt towards the club’s cheating. “I understand the reason why most of you are here but the only thing I can say is that there is a process ongoing and in this moment I completely trust the club,” he replied.

This correspondent’s radar bleeped at the use of “in this moment” and, when the microphone was passed, Maresca was quizzed if this meant he may change his mind. “Sorry, that was the wrong answer. I completely trust the club in this moment, in the future, always.” But there was no denying the initial response and how this points to these shaky times for all at City.

Read Jamie Jackson’s full piece on the role of Enza Maresca in the City saga:

Related: Maresca maintains almost total control as he follows Manchester City owners’ line | Jamie Jackson

Updated at 10.34am BST

9.54am BST

The Premier League is back: welcome to the new era of post-verdict unreality

The internet: an apology. It turns out you were right. It was actually a simulation all along. Now, talk to me about chemtrails again. And yes, maybe Vinícius Júnior has been replaced by a handsome, baffled-looking waxwork.

Welcome to the weirdest weekend of them all. We are now post-judgment, post-statement, postlapsarian. As the Premier League prepares to snap back into what must be described, out of habit, as reality, armed with the knowledge its serial champions have been the authors of a 10-year sham supremacy, the first question is fairly simple. How is it going to feel?

There is no precedent for this. Even the state of total confusion feels brittle given City maintain their complete state of innocence and deny all charges. We await the release of Irrefutable Body of Evidence, the great lost Madonna erotic thriller sequel, presumably recast around a steamy three-year regulatory tribunal scenario.

City’s appeal defence appears to be based around the government giving them money. This may or may not be related to how you control what the high court considers admissible. But it is also implied confirmation that the club is the propaganda tool of an overseas state, that Kyle Walker, for example, has basically been a civil servant all these years. Maybe the United Arab Emirates should have six stars on the national team jersey, one for each title. They even look like asterisks.

Read Barney Ronay’s latest column in full:

Related: The Premier League is back: welcome to the new era of post-verdict unreality | Barney Ronay

Updated at 10.34am BST

9.47am BST

Andy Hunter was Andoni Iraola’s Friday press briefing…

Iraola: ‘Uncertainty is no good for anyone’

Andoni Iraola understands the anger among Liverpool supporters towards Manchester City and believes the Premier League needs a resolution to the scandal engulfing English football as swiftly as possible.

Iraola avoided condemning City during his first press conference since the club were found guilty of breaching Premier League financial rules on an industrial scale over nine years. City have lodged an appeal against the findings and Liverpool’s head coach admitted a final, definitive verdict is essential for the good of the game. “I think it should be [concluded quickly],” he said. “There should be a moment when something comes from this, but now is not that moment. Nobody knows what is going to happen and I think this uncertainty is no good for anyone.”

Related: Managers react to Manchester City’s guilty verdict: ‘Uncertainty is not good for anyone’

Updated at 9.55am BST

9.44am BST

What did the respective mangers have to say before City’s trip to Liverpool?

Will Unwin was at Enzo Maresca’s pre-match presser…

Maresca ‘very calm’ despite storm engulfing club

Enzo Maresca says his players “don’t care about the noise” surrounding Manchester City. The manager and players reconvened on Thursday after spending the international break apart when the news of the club’s predicament was made public.

City maintain their innocence and have launched an appeal against the ruling, but if that fails could face a severe punishment. In the meantime, the staff and players are showing a strong front as they prepare for their first game in three weeks when they face Liverpool on Sunday.

“Personally I’m very calm to be honest,” Maresca told the club’s official website. “The club has been quite clear. We trust completely the club. We understand the noise but the focus for us is just what we can control and we can control just the football side.”

Related: Maresca believes City players ‘don’t care about the noise’ as Haaland calls for unity

Updated at 9.51am BST

9.39am BST

We’ve made it past a full hour on the blog and we’re yet to discuss this weekend’s main event. It’s a strange fixture in many ways, Liverpool have done little to suggest they are capable of stopping Manchester City on the field. Enzo Maresca’s side have won five from five and are top of the league. Yet, in this limbo period between the overhwelmingly guilty verdict and the sanctions coming down all of City’s matches will produce a result at the end of the 90 minutes that could be moot. If City win will it matter? If Liverpool win will it matter? This is the scale of the crisis facing the Premier League. This game is essentilly narrative cosplaying a competition.

I would be very keen to hear from readers on how they feel about the sporting spectacle at Anfield this afternoon. Drop me an email via the link at the top of the page on that or anything football-related.

9.14am BST

Manchester United and Spurs come back to reality as City saga offers brief distraction

Turning back the clock is impossible. Up in the Stretford End’s middle tier, the ticker had returned, a retouching job to “51 years” invoiced for the pertinent sum of £114. The Manchester City that existed before the Abu Dhabi project won their last trophy in 1976. Questionable maths is perhaps not confined to the Etihad’s accounts department, though Manchester United’s support must get their kicks where they can.

Should City’s fall from grace be fully confirmed by the appeals and sanctions process, there is nothing in the way of irrefutable evidence of United’s former supremacy being restored. How United fans would love to return to 2008, when Michael Carrick was a key cog in Sir Alex Ferguson’s team of European champions. Instead, the autumn of 2026 brings a familiar swell of doubt, another manager dragged towards the meat grinder.

Read John Brewin’s take on another gloomy day at Old Trafford:

Related: Manchester United and Spurs come back to reality as City saga offers brief distraction | John Brewin

9.08am BST

Savage the panto villain puts scepticism aside to leave Leicester reeling

It felt as though the stars had aligned when Robbie Savage’s first League One match in charge of Peterborough – his first EFL managerial role – happened to be at Leicester. He made his name here and forged a divisive and enduring reputation that has kept him a permanent fixture in English football.

Savage has long been a joker figure – an image born in his playing days, when he hurtled around midfields with long blond hair bouncing, launching into challenges that at one point made him the most booked player in Premier League history. A pantomime villain, a prankster and an eccentric who was once fined £10,000 by the Football Association – and two weeks’ wages by Leicester – for using referee Graham Poll’s toilet before a match (Savage blamed an upset stomach brought on by antibiotics.)

That persona followed him into the media after retirement and it hardly screams management material, yet Savage has quietly built a more serious reputation on the touchline in recent years.

Read Sam Cunningham’s full piece from the King Power Stadium:

Related: Robbie Savage the panto villain puts scepticism aside to leave Leicester reeling

9.00am BST

In the Chamoionship, Swansea strengthened their position at the top of the Championship with a 2-1 comeback win over Norwich. Second-half goals from Moussa Yeo and the Republic of Ireland striker Adam Idah wiped out Jacob Wright’s strike just before the half-hour mark.

Middlesbrough celebrated their 150th anniversary game in style as Will Lankshear’s second-half header secured a 1-0 victory over Wolves at the Riverside Stadium.

Lamine Cissé and Ben Wilmot were on target as 10-man Stoke extended their unbeaten league run to six games with a 2-1 win over Bolton.

Burnley’s first win of the season, and their first away from home since February, sent Watford fans into open revolt as the Clarets cruised home 4-0 at Vicarage Road. Derby are still without a home win after Ollie Rathbone scored late on to earn Wrexham a 1-1 draw at Pride Park.

The full roundup from the second-tier is here:

Related: Championship roundup: Swansea fight back to beat Norwich; Middlesbrough go second

8.51am BST

Portugal suspend Cristiano Ronaldo after walking out on national team

Cristiano Ronaldo has been provisionally suspended as the Portuguese football federation (FPF) opened disciplinary proceedings against the 41-year-old after his decision to walk out on the national team.

Ronaldo apologised to supporters on Tuesday while criticising the Portugal coach, Jorge Jesus, and said he would serve any “suspension that is imposed” on him.

“Disciplinary ​proceedings have been initiated against Cristiano ‌Ronaldo dos Santos Aveiro, following ‌a decision by the non-professional section on 9 October 2026,” the FPF said in ‌a statement released on Saturday.

Related: Portugal suspend Cristiano Ronaldo after walking out on national team

Updated at 9.00am BST

8.48am BST

North of the border, Rangers went top of the Scottish Premiership with a 3-1 in over Kilmarnock, while Hearts thumped St Mirren 5-0 and are nestled in behind the Old Firm before Celtic go to Motherwell today.

On the continent, Yan Diomandé earned Real Madrid a 1-0 win over Villarreal to keep them six points behind La Liga leaders Barcelona, but in a tight game Vinícius Júnior was sent off for hair pulling.

Anthony Gordon scored his first goal for Barcelona as they extended their perfect start in La Liga with a 3-0 home win over Getafe. While Rayo Vallecano’s match against Athletic Club was abandoned because of home fans at Vallecas stadium throwing objects on to the pitch in a protest against the club president, Raúl Martin Presa.

In Germany, Augsburg’s Robin Fellhauer scored the fastest ⁠goal in Bundesliga ⁠history in his side’s draw 2-2 with Bayern Munich. The champions trailed twice but Harry Kane earned Bayern a point ten minutes from time.

Inter surged to the top of Serie A thanks to three goals in the first half-hour to defeat an outclassed Parma 3-0 at San Siro. Napoli cruised to a 3-0 victory at home to Frosinone with Scott McTominay making his comeback after heart surgery.

In Ligue 1, Paris Saint-Germain eased to a 3-1 home victory over ⁠Le Mans, played out in a tense atmosphere amid student protests ​across France. Lille sit in second place after beating bottom club Le Havre 1-0.

Updated at 8.48am BST

8.30am BST

Before we look ahead to today’s games let’s have a recap on yesterday’s action:

Manchester United 1-1 Tottenham: Dominic Solanke glanced in a late equaliser to earn ten-man Spurs a point at Old Trafford.

Chelsea 5-1 Bournemouth: Jordan Henderson scored twice on Moisés Caicedo’s return to Xabi Alonso’s first XI. Chelsea looked much more solid with the Ecuadorian in the team.

Arsenal 2-1 Leeds: The Gunners winning machine trundled back on track after falling behind with Bruno Guimarães completing the comeback.

Aston Villa 2-2 Brentford: Each team lead this game but for a cumalative time of only four minutes. Villa are still yet to win at home this season.

Ipswich 2-1 Fulham: Pressure is mounting on Álvaro Arbeloa after his side led this one until the 88th minute. The west London club now have no wins in six and are bottom of the table.

Sunderland 0-2 Brighton: Even going down to ten men can’t stop Brighton, Maxim De Cuyper continued his excellent form with another goal. Second-season syndrome for Sunderland?

Updated at 8.44am BST

8.00am BST

Preamble It’s not an understatement to say the atmosphere at Anfield will be ‘lively’ today. Liverpool are arguably the team that has lost out the most to Manchester City in the period covered by the Premier League’s rap sheet, so it is a gift from the narrative gods that this is the first game since the verdict dropped. So… City win?

In the meantime, here’s this week’s Jonathan Wilson column on … why we’re stuck with a Premier League in the clutches of the global mega-rich.

Related: Why we’re stuck with a Premier League in the clutches of the global mega-rich | Jonathan Wilson

Updated at 8.34am BST