Hadley is a pro. Maybe he\u2019s been waiting for this hardball question about the charges. \u201cYou just never know what\u2019s going to happen \u2013 the world is a crazy place. I\u2019ve got to add to all the big band songs we\u2019re doing \u2026 at the end we do a Christmas catalogue which is great fun as well.\u201d What a sidestep.<\/p>\n
What am I doing? It\u2019s quarter to midnight in Melbourne, I\u2019m in my shed looking at Tony Hadley on a little box on my laptop asking what he thinks City\u2019s punishment might be. Quick, put a call in to Boy George. What\u2019s Midge Ure saying? Simon Le Bon has things to say, but they are embargoed until Drive Time.<\/p>\n
Perhaps this is Enzo Maresca\u2019s best strategy. The City manager\u2019s only way out of answering difficult questions is to organise a 20-date big band tour of the UK so he can do the Hadley pivot and talk about how he really brings the house down with his spectacular Christmas medley.<\/p>\n
It would certainly add to the monotony of every Premier League manager giving us their prepared \u201cI\u2019m a football man and all I\u2019m interested in is football \u2013 I\u2019ve got enough things to worry about at Coventry\/Leeds\/Bournemouth, etc.\u201d<\/p>\n
But such is the magnitude of the story that even these press conferences are interesting. For the first time since filming players walking off a bus in big headphones became part of the spectacle, I am interested in seeing players walking off a bus in big headphones on Sunday afternoon.<\/p>\n
Enzo Maresca ponders the Hadley pivot. Photograph: Andy Hampson\/PA<\/p>\n
We couldn\u2019t ask for a more perfect place or a perfect time for this game to take place. Liverpool away. The side City have pipped to the title by a point or two three times since the cheating began. I know two of the titles came after the cheating officially finished but don\u2019t think I need to mention that. What if City couldn\u2019t have afforded John Stones (height: 1.88m) and had settled for, say, Victor Lindel\u00f6f (1.87m)? How vital was that extra one centimetre of Stones in clearing that ball off the line against Liverpool at the Etihad in January 2019<\/a>?<\/p>\n The hypotheticals never end. Sliding Doors meets Biff\u2019s Almanac. Nicky Bandini explained on Thursday\u2019s Football Weekly<\/a> that Serie A has two histories depending on where you stand on Juventus and Calciopoli<\/a>: \u201cI think that\u2019s the truth that English football isn\u2019t ready for yet. Whatever happens with these decisions, whether they successfully end up appealing things or they don\u2019t, you\u2019re going to have one group of supporters who are absolutely certain they didn\u2019t win these trophies legitimately, and therefore they don\u2019t count, and you\u2019re going to have one group of supporters who don\u2019t care and are going to claim those trophies whether or not they get taken away from them.<\/p>\n \u201cI think that\u2019s the grim future that lies ahead for the Premier League. You\u2019re going to have two alternate histories, the same that happens in Italy, where the number of titles that Juventus has won is constantly repeated differently by different sources because one side or another is not going to accept the judgment even after the final appeals are exhausted.\u201d<\/p>\n
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