(Gravenberch red card 62′ | Haaland 65′, Doku 68′, Cherki 78′)

ANFIELD — It was like a dystopian episode of . All that bluster. All that angst. All those eyes watching in hundreds of countries around the world. For a game that was effectively meaningless.

Until Manchester City are sanctioned, that is the dark reality of Premier League football. Every success, every last-minute winner, every monumental upset could be deemed irrelevant in a few months if City are relegated, demoted or wiped from existence, as the most vociferous naysayers insist must happen as a result of their systemic breaching of the financial rules.

At Anfield on Sunday, we got our first taste of this new existence. The travelling supporters waved inflatable bananas to laugh in the face of their impending doom. They purchased “Cheats” merchandise and displayed it with gusto in the Merseyside sunshine. The team bus came in via a secret entrance.

Nobody wins in all of this. We can only hope all of the exhibition matches between now and the end of the season are as breathless as Sunday’s fraught encounter.

City’s first opponents since the guilty verdict could only have been Liverpool. The Premier League’s socialist enclave, where winning the right way is as important as the victories themselves. The club who feel most wronged, whose favourite German’s legacy could have been dramatically different had it not been for City’s financial doping.

Supporters lined Anfield Road in anticipation of being the first supporters in the angry land to voice their vitriol towards a busload of players, coaches and support staff, all of whom are completely innocent.

“What’s the story, tainted glory”, read one banner. Others demanded more medals for Jurgen Klopp and his perennial runners-up to City. Their message failed to get across, however, as the coach came from the opposite way and entered under the stadium.

Inside the ground, there appeared to be more yellow fruit than away supporters initially. It is a nod to the less problematic 1980s, when ecstatic revellers went straight from the Hacienda to City matches, waving inflatable bananas in homage to Imre Varadi, and a mispronunciation of his name that went viral, before viral was even a thing.

As numbers filled the stands, home supporters could finally boo and hiss to their heart’s content as City players made their way out for the warm-up. City fans, just prior to kick-off, did a “Poznan”. Bananas in hand. The whole spectacle was just downright bizarre.

A cauldron-like atmosphere, which started with whistles on par with anything Galatasaray followers could muster, soon fizzled out, as the action on the pitch wasn’t quite as intense as the feeling in the stands.

Other than a few long-range efforts for both, neither side could create any meaningful first-half openings. Anfield fell silent by the interval.

The game exploded into action early in the second half, Gianluigi Donnarumma was forced into two fine saves, before Iliman Ndiaye failed to connect from close range, as did Victor Munoz down the other end moments later.

After Ryan Gravenberch was sent off for two bookable offences early in the second half, the stage was set for the man whose astronomical wages would not have been possible without years of cheating to have the decisive and, of course, most controversial say.

Erling Haaland had only just passed up one glaring opportunity to break the deadlock before reacting quickest to the loose ball to fire the visitors in front, before a stunning Jeremy Doku strike – what has become a trademark curler – sent the away end into delirium.

Alfe Inge Haaland beat the air in among the travelling City fans. Noel Gallagher, strategically placed right at the front, in line with the cameras, looked like he was standing on the shoulder of giants, such was the euphoria. Liverpool simply didn’t possess the quality to issue a response of any kind.

City’s third was the pick of the bunch, and sent home supporters filing for the exits, feeling more cheated than ever. Rayan Cherki sashayed one way, slalomed the next, and slotted home to seal the most acrimonious victory the Premier League has ever produced.

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City supporters trust their club. What choice do they have? Pep Guardiola is preparing to return on Wednesday to lend his support. Chief executive Ferran Soriano was blinking away in the directors’ box. For now, the City juggernaut, three points clear at the summit, will keep rumbling on.

As Enzo Maresca insisted on Friday, these twenty-something players will go about their business regardless. They know only of what goes on during 90 minutes a couple of times a week.

It is for the greater powers to decide whether a City title success would be a distorted truth or not. And that fact makes the rest of this season feel more Orwellian than we have ever had to endure.