Ranking the funniest possible outcomes of Liverpool v Man City
Manchester City travel to Liverpool on Sunday after a three-week build-up of hype, but what is the objectively funniest outcome?
Morally, Liverpool dispatching City is probably the right thing for football but frankly where’s the fun in that? That would all be rather predictable and so we want chaos.
Here’s the possible outcomes of Sunday’s match ranked on how funny they would be.
5) Liverpool hammer City
While this is the situation most would want that therefore makes it the least funny.
We could all write the articles now, record the podcasts and film the YouTube videos on what Liverpool beating City means.
Obviously it means City are in crisis. Obviously it means the guilty verdict has affected the club. Obviously it means Erling Haaland has been up all night crying his eyes out.
That’s far too obvious for any kind of humour to be extracted from it.
4) 0-0 snoozefest
The bosses at Sky would have been licking their lips when they realised this would be the first City fixture post-verdict.
You can just imagine it: we will have live shots of the City bus arriving at the stadium; images of the team walking through the tunnel; a full day’s build-up like FA Cup finals of old.
But what if it is an absolute snoozefest? What if both sides cancel each other out and it ends in a bore draw?
That would feel like going to watch gladiators in ancient Rome and they spend the time wrestling rather than you know, swords and stuff.
While painful to sit through, that would also be quite funny in itself as a reminder that football does not always care about our narrative.
3) A howler of a VAR decision
City’s cheating has nothing to do with refs but we all know someone who would happily forget that to be outraged, so it would be quite hilarious if there was a catastrophic VAR blunder.
We are talking Luis Díaz v Spurs level of good process, lads. Maybe a clearly offside goal gets given. Maybe that ball was out of play before someone crossed it. Maybe Haaland did elbow Virgil van Dijk in the head and no one saw it.
The outrage would be monumental. The phone lines for talkSPORT would be endlessly engaged. The tabloids would no doubt have some crass headline across the front of Monday’s papers.
Then we’d get Howard Webb explaining that it was an “unfortunate incident” even though it’s happened dozens of times under his watch. Dermot Gallagher would also defend the ref because he seems to be unable to do anything but.
The outrage would be immense and we are here for it.
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2) Man City’s goalscorers are worth over £300m
City’s cheating period ends at 2018 which means they definitely decided to play fair and square since then, right?
So this £1.4 billion squad they have assembled is definitely the result of sponsorships and a global fanbase that means you can still buy tickets for their next home game.
One of the funniest outcomes of the Anfield game would be if City’s very expensive signings all got on the scoresheet. Maybe Enzo Fernandez opens the scoring and Elliot Anderson gets one soon after. Hell, even Ayyoub Bouaddi can have one.
As the chef’s kiss on that particular scenario, have Haaland score late on because he definitely cost £50m.
1) City smash Liverpool
This is clearly the most hilarious outcome.
After three weeks of being declared the ultimate evil in football, it would be quite funny if City just swat Liverpool aside, wouldn’t it?
How would the world react? We’ve spent weeks preparing to punish this club and now you are telling us they have in fact won and are still top of the Premier League table?
That outcome would serve as a reminder that the Premier League bosses made their bed, now they’ve got to sleep in it. Open the door to state-backed teams and one day it will come back to bite you on the arse.
In that scenario it would not just be City who are a sham but the league itself.
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