It finally happened. Man City have been punished for the 115 charges. Three weeks of international break, and we came back to the one verdict every Liverpool fan has been waiting on for years. So yes, there were emotions.

Then, because the fixture list has a sense of humour, we had to preview City at Anfield this weekend.

The verdict, and whether it’s enough

JD opened with the least diplomatic sentence of the season: “Strip the club, distribute their assets, Liverpool gets the biggest share.” He was only half joking.

Sheik found the line that will outlive the episode: “They rode a bike through the marathon, then said they were ambitious.” That’s the whole case, really. Nobody is arguing City didn’t spend well. The argument is about what they were allowed to spend, and for how long nobody stopped them.

What it actually cost Klopp’s Liverpool

This is the part that still stings. Count the near-misses: the 97-point season, the 92-point season, both lost by a single point. How many Premier League titles did Trent, Salah and Robertson actually lose? We didn’t settle on a number, but it isn’t one.

The table agreed on something else: Klopp should be heralded as one of the best managers football has ever seen. He built two of the greatest teams the league has had, against a rival now found to have been playing a different game. Brendan Rodgers and Steven Gerrard belong in this conversation too. Those are legacies City took a piece of.

Vivek unloads on Pep

Then Vivek went somewhere none of us expected: “Pep is below Carrick, Solskjaer, Lampard. Pep is a FRAUD.”

We did push back. But his point underneath it is sharper than the headline: if the achievements were built on breaking the rules, how much of the genius was the manager and how much was the money? It’s a hot take. It’s also the take half the comments section will agree with.

Why we don’t want the stripped titles

You’d think we’d want the trophies handed over. We don’t. Look at Inter Milan and the title they were awarded off the pitch, the one Italian football still calls the “cardboard title”. A trophy you didn’t win on the day doesn’t feel like a trophy, and those Klopp teams deserve better than an asterisk.

And Vivek’s other point landed too: if City get dissolved, “nobody actually cares”. Outside Manchester, who’s mourning? Liam Gallagher as the lone fan, plus the AI-generated banner meme, more or less proved it.

The draft game: three City players for Liverpool

Pick three Man City players to bring to Anfield. It got heated. Jins went straight for Guéhi and built most of his list around defenders, which tells you exactly where his worries are.

City at Anfield: the test is real

Back to the actual football. Rodri is back and Haaland is firing, so this isn’t a wounded City. And it’s the first of a four-game run from hell: City, Palace, Brentford, Chelsea.

Our case for surviving it rests on the back three: Araújo, Jacquet and Van Dijk. It’s the trio we trust most to hold up when the run gets ugly. And then there’s the Wirtz question going into the biggest game of the season at Anfield. Whether he turns up in this one may decide how we remember October.

How many Premier Leagues should City lose?

Drop your number in the comments on YouTube or Instagram: 3, 5, all of them? Give us your Man City score prediction while you’re there. We read every one, and the best (and worst) make it onto the next pod.