Larry Ryan: Will City's Agueroooo moment really be forever tainted?

DRINK IT IN: Manchester City's Sergio Aguero celebrates scoring the third goal during the Barclays Premier League match at the Etihad Stadium, Manchester. Pic: PA

Will the Agueroooo moment be forever tainted if the charges of financial chicanery against Manchester City are proven? That is what they are asking now in the highways and bylines of opinion. That is what was put to Pep Guardiola in his defiant press conference on Friday.

Pep stuck to his guns vis-a-vis City’s innocence on all fronts and his absolute trust in what the club has told him. What choice did he have once he was still in situ? But he also threw in the odd reference to winning things ‘on the pitch’, possibly in case this one ever goes against them, in the dock.

What if the charges stick, one day? Should Martin Tyler’s commentary be struck from the record? Should we stop watching it? Should we stop drinking it in? Can we apply retrospective taint to the Premier League’s finest hour?

Should every De Bruyne pass in the archives have its precise arc retrospectively corrupted? Must we retrospectively fit David Silva with clown shoes? Should Vincent Kompany’s leadership be retrospectively impeached? Can we have Yaya Toure’s cake and eat it? Or should we make this always about him, Mario Balotelli?

Maybe they could remaster the Aguero footage to edit out the shots of Roberto Mancini celebrating with his coaches, lest our minds drift to accountancy and charges, and the irrefutable evidence of innocence we await from City. Or might it be better to splice in an accusatory graphic of bogus payslips, just at the moment Mario is laying it off, prone on his arse, the moment where the hairs stand on your neck every single time?

“The courts will dictate what happens and after what will happen I am fully convinced we will be innocent,” Pep reiterated.

If the courts someday decide otherwise and we get around to punishment, titles may be wiped. Asterisks could be applied. They may even share round the spoils. Would City’s crowns go to the second-placed team? Will Brendan Rodgers and Steven Gerrard retrospectively unslip? Will Jose and Ole get belated reward for their unrecognised genius at Old Trafford?

Or should all City’s results be expunged and the tables recalculated? Even some relegations reversed? Might you hand out four or five points to every club from which City bought a player and give Arsene Wenger another title for his tally?

Whatever way they handle it, these crowns will probably be worn only in the halls of banter. When they are squabbling over who sits on the perch.

But the taint. How exactly will the retrospective taint work?

In years to come, would we flick on clips of Haaland banging them in and roll our eyes like we’re surveying the line-up for the 1988 Olympic 100m? Or watching the Michelle Smith episode of Reeling in the Years? Or remembering Lance Armstrong glance around at Jan Ullrich as he powered up l'Alpe d'Huez?

In one sense, Pep suggests the other 19 Premier League clubs have forced us down that road, by pencilling in these asterisks already, making his club The Damned City.

“What happens if we are innocent, are we going to get back with damages?

“They open a precedent now, what they have done to us, be careful in the future because many clubs can make suggestions and a lot of clubs can be accused like we are accused.” 

Yet at the same time he maintains, however, this one plays out among the Tom Sawyers, that old scorelines are set in stone.

“From the moment Sergio scored, Gundogan versus Aston Villa, the years belong to us, to our fans, to our people. We did it on the pitch.” 

Because isn’t it the fundamental majesty of football that we suspend everything we know to be rotten once they get out there on the pitch? Isn’t it the central scaffold on which sportswashing is built, that there’s almost no limit to what we’d digest to get the best possible team of footballers on a field? Mainly because we know at least the footballers have got there on merit. That once the whistle goes, a certain kind of fairness takes over, relatively uncontaminated. 

So if we got past the source of the funds that paid for Aguero and all the rest, will the realisation that more money was put in than was strictly allowed really be our line in the sand?

No. Punishment or not, Pep is probably right on this one. City and their fans will keep their memories. We’ll still swear you'll never see anything like this ever again.