How will the 115 charges affect Man City's Premier League title charge? | ESPN FC

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Manchester City's celebration row and 115 charges, plus Manchester United's squad problems and Chelsea's defensive concerns

The panel begins with the criticism of Manchester City celebrating at Anfield and then weighs the 115 charges, the timing of sanctions and appeals, and the siege mentality around the club. The conversation shifts to Manchester United, where the panel argues the squad and recruitment are the real issues, before a short warning about Chelsea's defending.

Shaka Hislop, Steve Nicol, Mark Ogden and Mario Melchiot join Dan Thomas on ESPN FC to discuss: 0:00 Manchester City’s season outlook 22:34 Man United’s struggles 35:14 Chelsea’s attack 38:02 Extra Time ✔️ Subscribe to ESPN Unlimited: https://plus.espn.com/ ESPN ESPNFC

Transcript

Welcome in to the latest edition of ESPNFC. I'm Dan Thomas joined by Shaka Hisoff and Stevie Nickel. Whether you like it or not, Manchester City are perfect in the Premier League after a 3-0 victory at Anfield over Liverpool. Uh headlines all about cheats, about a victory, a whole smorggas board of media coverage it received. to welcome in Mario Malcott's with us as is Mark Ogden who was at Anfield. You'll be hearing from Mark in a moment. We covered it well I thought we covered it all yesterday. We talked about the yellow card, the red card, Manchester City improving in the second half, Liverpool kind of running out of steam. What we didn't talk about and it seems to be a topic that some have picked up on ex players and the UK media is that Manchester City celebrated their victory. They should have read the room. Some are saying Shaq, they were saying they were smug and arrogant. I've gone to you because you're the most sensible one, I would say, in our group. How would you have dealt with this situation if you're a Manchester City player? >> Well, I accept that compliment very smuggly and arrogantly. >> It's a low bar. >> Yes. Well, I'm I'm I'm still smug and arrogant all the same. Um I I don't understand that criticism. You you win a game at Anfield and you don't celebrate. I I I cannot imagine what set set of circumstances brings that about. Absolutely. Manchester City should celebrate. I I I I just I I don't get it. You go to Anfield and you win regardless of what's going on around you. That's that's reason to celebrate as much as anything. >> You got a problem with it, Stevie? >> No, not at all. So to ogie, those that do, I'm not sure if you're it quite in that camp, but can we not celebrate anything that happens on the football pitch now because of what's preceded it? >> Yeah, I'm not sure I buy that. I mean, obviously like like Shaka said to win at Anfield, 3-0 at Anfield is a is a massive result in any season. And despite what's gone on beforehand, you have to accept that, you know, the players have been underclared for a couple of weeks. And whether there's any fault on their part, probably not. But obviously the players are party to because they signed for a club knowing most of them signed for a club knowing that they had 115 charges hanging over them. And I do wonder how many of these players signed for Man City thinking I wonder how this club earns more money than Real Madrid and Manchester United and Liverpool. But you know maybe they didn't. So they probably felt that they were under siege a little bit. They probably been roused by Enzo Moresca. So you can't criticize them for celebrating. It wasn't just any old win. It was a three-0 win. So and they were given pretty much for going over by the fans beforehand. So, I guess when you come out of that scenario, that that kind of atmosphere, you're going to react in a kind of victorious manner, like, you know, I've seen the headlines today and I've seen the suggestions that these Man City games should be ignored now and the Ghost games until the Premier League decides what to do with them. But, you know, they might win the appeal. I mean, who knows? And if they win the appeal, then they'll say, "Well, we had every right to celebrate at Anfield." So, it's a really strange situation, but I don't think you can criticize the City Place for celebrating a win at Anfield. The atmosphere, Mark, was interesting because we talked a lot about it in the buildup and Stevie mentioned it on Friday. You know, Anfield's going to be on fire. It's going to be really intense. It seemed to be intense for a bit and there seemed to be a lot of posters, but that seemed to Wayne as the game went on. >> Yeah, it fizzled after about 15 20 minutes, probably not even that long. But I think the issue here, Dan, is that I think the Liverpool fans realized they hadn't got a team to compete with Man City and they were kind of worried that Man City were going to get a result. Now obviously it was nil nil until Gravenber was sent off but this wasn't the Liverpool team of Jurgen Klo of Moalo Sadio Manz Firmino they couldn't really lay a glove on on Man City and as soon as Grainberg was sent off City pulled away so I think it did fade away it I've been Anfield on the the big European nights when it's really sustained and it's really kind of bouncing but then the fans have got something to get behind because the players are delivering for them they know that you know I was there the night they played Barcelona and won 4-0 they knew they had a team of absolute as club called them mentality monsters who could beat anybody ear in the day and and the fans got some belief out of that. I think the fans on Sunday felt that yes, they were really angry at Man City because it's cost them maybe two Premier League titles, but they didn't believe that their team had the ability to win. I mean, I was watching, you know, Kumas up front and and Munos there just kids really and it looked like kids. It looked like had a team of of, you know, a decent players defensive midfield and up front they had nothing, you know, even Barker 120 million pound players. So, I don't think the fans believed enough to keep on the on the backs of City all the way through. I think they were more fearful of what City could do and that's why the the atmosphere fizzled out. >> We can still enjoy football though. Yeah, Mark. Well, we're allowed to like there's a suggestion that oh, you can't appreciate what City have done because it's all been built on lies and cheating. We've still got to wait for verdict to come through until it comes through. Like if Manchester City win the title, they win the title. We we've still just got to be able like maybe I'm in maybe I'm in the minority, but yesterday I was able to watch the game like a normal game and I enjoyed it just as a neutral and a spectacle. There's some that seem to almost put me down for that because you got to say, "Yeah, but look what preceded it. Look what's built up to this. Look what this is a consequence of." But if we keep doing that, then what have we got, Mark? What have we got left in life? >> I won't put you down, Dan. You know, I like your romantic notions. But let listen, we have to accept that Man City have been found guilty. That everyone keeps talking at the process is ongoing. Well, they've been found guilty. If you get a speeding ticket, you get a fine, you get a penalty, and you have to appeal it. City's been found guilty, but they haven't been given a sanction yet. And that's the strange thing. And that that's why people have a problem with this because it's almost like they're carrying on regardless when everyone has been told they've basically been found guilty of 114 of 115 charges. So, why have they not been sanctioned? Now they haven't been sanctioned because the the independent commission that decided the outcome of that first hearing hasn't decided a sanction yet. But I you know when when you wait for penalized City 7 8 years ago they banned them initially for two years they found them guilty of of breaching regulations and straight away they banned them from the Champions League for two years. Now City won that on appeal but the appeal was against the sanction as well as the the penalty. That is the issue for me that City are still playing and we don't know what their sanctions is that you know they could be they could win every game this season but still get relegated. I looked at the odds today for relegation. They are the third favorites to be relegated yet the top of the league have won six out of six this season. So you know they could end the season as invincibles and relegated and that's the weird thing. People want to know what what's going to happen to them. You can't keep it guessing. If they do carry on like this, does it put pressure on the sanction panel to come up with a different sanction because they're so flying flying fire at the top of the league that it's like, well, does that change how the sanction? So, sanction them now and then deal with it afterwards. If they if they win the appeal, then the sanction gets taken away. It's just a strange scenario. That's why I can understand why people think that these games don't matter. They probably matter if City lost. Everyone say it matters then, but now that City won, it's an easy thing to say, well, you know, they're going to get relegated anyway, so what does it matter? But it just makes it difficult to kind of get your head around really. >> Mario, we're in this situation to simplify. It's almost like a Disney movie. You've got the heroes, the good guys. Manchester City are very much the villain. They are the bad guys, which does, I suppose, add a little more pantomime to to the narrative and to the story. And if you're involved in that Manchester City squad, we saw it a little bit late yesterday, obviously, with the fans and the bananas. Did you embrace that that kind of villain tag that you have? Yeah, I mean, look, it it definitely affects a team and we're not going to lie about it because things like that happen, right? You might try to keep your head down and try not to get uh attached to the situation in the sense of what is going to come out, how everybody talks about it. You try to really move away from the heat and making sure that you can do your job. And on the other part is like uh in the dressing room, I'm sure there are some players that will say, you know, open them up and say like listen guy, everybody's against us. uh being part of that team. The the the key thing that will happen and what is going to be very important for a squad like Manchester City is just keeping their head down and just keep winning. For everybody else, we are playing a guessing game and we will do it till the Premier League comes out with the reason the rules whatever they have decided. But prior to that we are just playing a guessing game and kind of a way is a little bit annoying because we want to know what's up. Steven Nickel, >> you know, when you're winning, doesn't matter what people are throwing at you, it just you just bat it off. It's when you're losing and everybody's still throwing stuff at you, then you figure out what you have. But whilst they're winning games, they're just going to keep using it as fuel and and the only test will come when they start if they do ever start losing games. So right now, everything that's going on outside of the field isn't affecting them. And we saw that in the game. You know, when they got the opportunity, yes, Liverpool lost a man, but when they got the opportunity, they grabbed them by the throat, strangled them to death. So, they're going to continue to do that until something big changes. And until that that happens and they keep winning, they're just going to keep performing. >> The thing for me is I I like Steve was expecting a really difficult game coming to Anfield in this moment. We know what Anfield can be like and and given the result well you felt that it could have gone in hindsight this could have gone one of two ways for Manchester City they could have lost 3-0 and then everything's piling on everything that's going on away from the football field is is just kind of highlighting some of the issues that or it looks like what's happening off of the of the field is affecting everything that's happening on it and then that pressure just starts to tell on an incredibly talented bunch of players or as we've seen, you go to Anfield, you win 3-0, and you lean into that siege mentality that everybody's against us and given a lot of the rhetoric in the press that you can't even celebrate. Um, it certainly feels like that. And and that siege mentality is incredibly motivating in the short term. I've made that point time and time again. It is incredibly motivating to get you from point A to point B. It gets tired when you're a club like a Real Madrid or a Barcelona or whoever else it may be when that's all you've got at some point that can't be all you've got. City right now um have every reason to lean into that and I think that gets them that gets them a lot of results. Right now the City ownership is telling the players, you'll have nothing to worry about. We'll win this appeal. Everybody else might be saying something different, but >> I'm gonna believe the guy who's paying me 300 grand a week. >> Yeah. >> Okay. Is the media hyping this up more than the fans are? >> No. I mean, the there's a real I'd say it's a poisonous atmosphere over here that the the antipathy towards Man City is is huge at the moment. And I think what I saw at Anfield yesterday, that's going to be every away grand go to and it's not going to go away and at some point it's going to be hard for the players to deal with that because wherever they go >> but Auggie like it was the first game it was Anfield it was 15 minutes. >> Why is that going to be different at any other ground? >> Because there there's a sense that City Well the world is cheated that and you know it's you know Docker comes off the bench and scores a great goal that Harland scores the goal. They've got world-class players in every position and on the bench. And that's that's the that's City in a nutshell. why we're in this situation that they artificially inflated their earnings so they could buy these players over the years and stockpile these players and and that's why Liverpool fans are so angry about them is because when Jurgen Klad's brilliant team 97 points didn't win the league because City were able to buy an even better squad and it's why Arsenal were unable to win the league for two or three years because City had this amazing squad which they have bought and built over the years by artificially inflating their income. So fans across the border are angry about it and it and I think listen the Man City fans have got every right to to gold Liverpool and and take the mickey out of them by you know waving bank notes and everything because they're the ones that are under siege right now but there's a real hostility towards City that I I sense across the board and it seems to have gone up a level from yesterday but that's because they won. It's because they won and they and how they reacted to winning and I've got no issue with that. If you're a Man City fan or a Man City player you can win however you like. Doesn't matter what people say, but the levels are going up. And what I'm saying about City having to deal with it wherever they go. If they're having to deal with it against Ipsswich and Coventry and Leads and Newcastle, place you wouldn't normally get it. I just wonder what it'll do to the mentality of the players. You know, I think most of those players, they won't actually care because if City get relegated to the Championship or League 2 or whatever, they'll just leave anyway. That those players know they're going to go to a club next year that's going to pay them pretty much what Man City pay them. They're going to go to clubs that win trophies. They're not really that bothered. I don't think they care that much. But what will lead to their reputation? Will it be tainted by being part of that team? Will they think what will Harland think about being the face of Man City if they actually get, you know, finally done for all these charges? So, I do think it it will have a drip drip effect. But ultimately, you know, Man City and their players and their fans have got every right to say, you know, react as they did because everyone's against them and they really are against them right now. I don't think it's being hyped up at all. If there was if there was one group that's going to be hurt the most, I think it's the traveling fans, not the players. Not not the players. You know, the play, as I said, if they keep winning, if you if you're going to go to Anfield and win uh and and shove the first 25 minutes back at the fans and then you've quietened them and then you've gone and won the game, where is it going to be any worse? It's not going to be any worse. They they've shown already the players that they can deal with that, overcome it, win the game, and then go and clap the fans. To me, the fans are going to have the biggest problem going away from home >> cuz they're the ones when they get on the train, get off the train, on the way to the ground, at the ground, they're the ones that are going to be under pressure constantly and goded and trying to be wound up by all the all the other fans. the players of of all of the things that are going on at City. In my opinion, I want to be a player at City because that's that's the that's the easiest place for them to to just go and play. A football a proper football player is more comfortable on the field than anywhere else. >> I think I think to that point or to Augie's point, while the temperature is being turned up elsewhere in the media and etc. and and that that kind of bad feeling toward to towards city um is is is being felt and and and it's amplifying as as as we speak. City players aren't out in that aren't experiencing that. >> Just to pick Augie up on a point and what do you think Shack that he said it it will affect the legacy of people like Erling Holland. They will be the poster child of of what >> that Well, time will tell as far as that goes. Right. And right as a player, I'm not sure that anybody is that bothered about their legacy in the moment. Certainly not now. Maybe when you come to the end of your career, you start thinking about, you know, what what my legacy may look like. But as a what 24, 25 year old, whatever Erling Harland is, that's the least of your concerns. And and the player and but you know, to to that point, the players aren't out in the public. The players aren't going to the grocery and having to experience this this toxic atmosphere that everybody else is. They go to the training ground, they go home, they go to the stadium on the weekend, endure that abuse, which you kind of get used to because you've been top of the tree for so long that every game is is is is difficult in in in that regard. And you've learned how to cope with it. And I think City as a team, certainly the players cope with that wonderfully well. I'm with Steve. If you if you're a city fan, a traveling city fan, it gets a little bit more difficult. >> Go on, Mario. >> Yeah. No, I I totally agree with this guys. You know what they say? Why why I agree? Because if if we we all been in derbies, right? And when derbies are are really effective and why it's very effective because when the bus comes to the to the stadium, we are protected. We have security. We have police around us, you know, drivers into the stadium. When when a fan comes out, it's a different ball game. like even when I was a young boy starting in Holland the the fighting and the things that were going on and then later on when I came to England of course the fighting was intense and you could hear how the fans sometimes will meet up and you know go at each other so I think that is way more that's way heavier and also we have to understand um when you play the game of football right and people are all against you and you kind of like I don't want to say they're the underdog because clearly they one of the best teams in England but um they know that that kind of talking is going to go against them. So the only thing they have to focus on is like hey guys we can only win against what everybody says is is we have to keep winning and if we stop it we will change and there are so many individuals and we're talking about one of the greatest individuals in the world. they've been booed and talked about for so long when they play those games and we all been around it and now you have a team that's going through that and you know clearly they just have to do it and I I don't believe like um what's happening now yeah it's not great for the for for the league because you don't want city to go al