Liverpool vs Manchester City - Premier League LIVE: Follow all the build-up, action and reaction from Anfield as the visitors play their first match since their guilty verdict

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Follow Daily Mail Sport's live blog for updates as Liverpool host bitter rivals Man City in the 4.30pm kick-off as well as updates from the 2pm encounter between Crystal Palace and Nottingham Forest.

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Is this an apparition that we see before us? Is it real? Is Liverpool-Manchester City at Anfield a football match or a ghost-game? Will it remain in the sport's history books or will it be erased when City’s guilty verdicts on 114 charges of financial chicanery meet their punishment sometime in the months ahead?

There was a time when any Premier League clash between these two sides would have been regarded as the best advertisement for the English game that there could be. Not anymore. This game is being played at a wonderful stadium but it might as well be in a circus tent. It is not a match. It is a giant and terrible curiosity.

The great managers who helped to define this collision between modern giants – Jurgen Klopp and Pep Guardiola – are both gone and now this clash stands for something else: it marks the start of a period of slow torture for the top flight in this country, a period when we cannot know whether there is any permanence attached to results that involve City. A period when we will not know whether we should believe what we see.

If – as many expect them to be – City are expelled from the Premier League before the end of this season, what happens to this afternoon’s result then? It will be declared null and void, presumably. The same fate, perhaps, will befall all matches involving City this season. ‘We’re not really here,’ City fans love to sing and its lyrics have never felt more apt.

> READ OLIVER HOLT'S analysis in full HERE

Before we have any complaints in the comments, of course there is one other Premier League match today as impressive Hull City host Everton at 2pm.

Just like at Selhurst Park, we'll provide you key updates from this 2pm encounter too at the MKM Stadium.

Before that humdinger of an encounter on Merseyside, we also have another rivalry in London as Crystal Palace host Nottingham Forest.

We'll touch upon that later too but for fans of both clubs, we'll provide you key updates from Selhurst Park as and when they unfold too. Kick-off is at 2pm.

How are we? Everyone got the popcorn ready for this afternoon? There is so much to unpack now, and later, as Liverpool welcome bitter rivals Manchester City in the Premier League at 4.30pm.

For over a decade this has been a marquee match with these two perennially fighting for the title but now this match will have some extra spice!

> Follow all the build-up, action and reaction at Anfield with Daily Mail Sport HERE .

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