Antoine Semenyo has put his journey to the top of European football down to journaling. Scribbling stuff down, manifesting every goal and target since the age of 14. It’s safe to say that the circumstances around the past fortnight will not have made it into those notebooks.
Semenyo and his Manchester City team-mates didn’t account for this. It’s beyond their wildest nightmares, chastised as cheats for crimes committed before their time. Semenyo was eight years old when Sheikh Mansour completed his takeover.
There has been a prevailing wind of anger blowing towards these players since Sunday. Since their temerity to beat Liverpool and since their further unforgivable sin of basking in that feat once the whistle blew at Anfield. Rayan Cherki puffed his chest out, you know. Erling Haaland smirked at some fans waving bananas. Others shook their fists. One even shouted.
And their manager. What can be said of Enzo Maresca? He only went and danced down the touchline and stuck two fingers in his ears. Risible arrogance of a man who, whether the critics like it or not, might just be using the guilty verdicts and deluge of condemnation as a motivational tool. Because that is what football people do.
‘Criticised for what?’ Maresca said of commentators launching rebukes in their direction. He looked genuinely surprised. ‘We won 3-0 at Anfield! What do you want us to do? And even if it was 0-1, it would be exactly the same.
‘The rest? It’s just things from outside that we need to deal with, but we were so, so happy inside the pitch, and you cannot imagine inside the changing room.’
There has been a prevailing wind of anger blowing towards City’s players since Sunday. Since their temerity to beat Liverpool and their unforgivable sin of basking in that feat
What can be said of Enzo Maresca? He only went and danced down the touchline. Risible arrogance of a man who might just be using the guilty verdicts as a motivational tool
Having built Anfield up as the worst possible assignment for City’s first public outing since the independent commission handed down their judgment, attention immediately shifted as Maresca’s squad passed the test and then some.
Shifted to this unreasonable clamour for footballers to temper emotions for the demands of a section of the watching public – of course ignoring a sizeable number who support clubs lower down the EFL, who accepted that the Premier League ate itself long ago and are far more pre-occupied by the concept of Wrexham’s rapid rise through the divisions.
Shifted to this clamour to bow their heads in sorrow, to demonstrate embarrassment, to cower in shame as they simultaneously have the executives who pay their wages telling them in no uncertain terms that the club will have findings overturned on appeal.
The idea of that happening right now looks remote but the prospects of points deductions or worse cannot be in the minds of a group of young men whose sole aim now is to beat Paris Saint-Germain in the Champions League on Wednesday night and continue a flawless start to the season on the pitch.
‘We’ll celebrate however we feel in the moment,’ captain Ruben Dias said. ‘It’ll be a show of how much things mean to us. Yes, there is a lot of noise and it’s almost impossible to not see something – even us being so private. But I feel like we’re also very good at focusing on ourselves.
‘We had conversations for everyone to be on the same page and be clear about our peace of mind. You build yourself against any kind of noise. I feel like I speak for the whole group when I say we’re very calm. We trust the club. We know the team we’ve got and want to win. It’s the same noise as before because people don’t love us.’
Dias hit upon something there. They very much do not love City and have not done for decades, when the club was more slapstick – regularly grasping defeat from the jaws of victory – and threw David James up as a striker and had furry mascots in the dugout for good luck.
They’ve never loved them because of the winning and the money and the sense of ill-gotten gains. So quite why Dias – who signed six years ago – cannot lead a charge of resistance against those who have never liked them anyway is anybody’s guess. What he effectively relayed during media duties ahead of PSG was that this is nothing particularly new to him.
‘Criticised for what?’ Maresca said of commentators launching rebukes in their direction. He looked genuinely surprised. ‘We won 3-0 at Anfield! What do you want us to do?’
Quite why Ruben Dias – who signed six years ago – cannot lead a charge of resistance against those who have never liked them anyway is anybody’s guess
Although a newcomer over the summer, Elliot Anderson tapped into the same attitude too. ‘It gives you the determination, where everyone is against you, to turn them over,’ the midfielder said. ‘We are more together than ever and things like this only bring you closer together.’
That was impressed on the players by Maresca in a meeting last Thursday when all convened after the international break, and the Italian is yet to make a misstep in the eyes of City and their supporters on taking the reins from Pep Guardiola, who will return for the first time as a show of unity when PSG arrive.
‘Probably it has been more tough for our fans than for the players or for me,’ he reasoned. ‘Probably because it’s more complicated. Because if I am an Arsenal fan or a Man United fan, I can tell you, “Hey my friend, you cheat”, or these kind of things. It has been more tough for them. Anfield was unbelievable.’
Maybe the scenes and celebrations were for those singing behind that goal. And even if they weren’t, who are we to judge?
