Manchester City have, for the second time in a matter of days, shamelessly turned up to play a game of football. It’s just not on.

And they don’t stop there. Their captain has been breaking more rules, while their ex-manager has gone into very public hiding.

And across the city, there’s still nonsense to be mined from the Lisandro Martinez story.

Shameless
Mediawatch is genuinely starting to fear that our inherently contrarian nature means that, at some point really quite soon, the media’s collective self-righteous huff about Manchester City having the temerity to win football matches or score goals or now even to play football matches at all is going to tip us completely to the other side of the argument.

We’re dangerously close to a point where we don’t want Manchester City punished at all because, sure, £900m of coordinated cheating at grave cost to the entire fabric of the sport is bad, but also have you seen the pompous bumgravy they’ve put in the paper today?

We’re not exaggerating, by the way. About any of it. The simple act of playing football is now unacceptable when Manchester City do it. The Media™ weren’t happy when they won, and they aren’t happy now they’ve lost.

This is Jeremy Cross’ tubthumping intro in the Mirror.

Manchester City’s shameless act of defiance lasted less than 13 minutes. That’s all it took for Paris Saint-Germain to inflict their own punishment on rivals who could well have a lot more of the stuff to come.

Sorry, but f*ck off out of it. The ‘shameless act of defiance’ that is playing 13 minutes of football against PSG before conceding a goal? We just know we’re going to keep coming back again and again to Enzo Maresca’s ‘What do you want us to do?’ over the days and weeks ahead.

The very worst Cross has got so, well, cross at the very idea of Manchester City still being allowed to exist that he’s lost the entire run of himself. By the time he’s done, he’s forgotten how numbers work and even what football is.

The harsh truth appeared to be that he [Pep Guardiola] hadn’t been missed since stepping down at the end of last season. Enzo Maresca had made the perfect start to succeeding the Spaniard, winning his first six games in charge.

But making it seven at the expense of the best side in Europe was a different ball-game altogether. Quite literally, as PSG would go on to prove.

Maresca has – still – a flawless record of six wins in six Premier League games so far. It was eight wins from eight in all competitions. He was either going for a ninth win, or he still has a chance at the seventh. Either the Champions League counts or it doesn’t.

And it is quite literally the same ball-game.

Sex and the City
Anyway, while we’re on the subject of Man City, let’s have a quick round-up of the top football headlines this morning from the red tops.

The Sun:

EX AND THE CITY

Pep Guardiola looks shellshocked as Man City battered and PSG fans troll Etihad with Poznan celebration

The Mirror:

EX AND THE CITY

Guardiola watches on as Man City beaten by PSG after frightening first-half onslaught in first home game since charges bombshell

The Daily Star:

ALWAYS SCORING

Premier League icon bedded Playboy model, Soccerette, X Factor star and Ryan Giggs’ lover

Flawless work all round. Jermain Defoe, if you’re interested.

Hide and peak
Still, fair play to the intrepid, eagle-eyed journalists from The Sun and the Mirror for even managing to spot Pep Guardiola at all despite his ingenious attempts to sneak in and out of the Etihad unseen last night.

The Mail have the story.

Hiding under a flat cap, Pep Guardiola tried to be incognito but the ex-Man City manager’s presence was felt on his return with demands his big moments are expunged entirely from history

‘Hiding under’ or just… wearing? Impossible to say. But Mediawatch is nothing if not generous of spirit, and it is in that spirit that we’re happy to offer the Mail a pro tip: if you’re going to be weird and pretend that wearing a flat cap is some kind of disguise or an attempt to hide, then don’t accompany your story with a picture of this real-life Clark Kent cheerfully removing that flat cap. Kind of gives the game away a bit.

And the Man City rule-breaking continues
We won’t blame you if you can’t remember a Mediawatch from as far back as August. We could barely remember it, and we wrote it.

His reasoning, variously described as ‘bizarre’ and ‘unusual’ and even amounting to a BAN on Haaland getting the armband was this.

“At Leicester and Chelsea, I had a rule that when we scored, the captain had to come to the bench for instructions and not celebrate,” Maresca revealed in his first interview since taking charge at City.

“But if he scores, then he can celebrate. If Erling is the captain, f****** hell – we have a problem, can you imagine?”

It was very obvious at the time that this was nothing more nor less than a manager making a little joke about a player who wasn’t Manchester City’s club captain, had never been Manchester City’s club captain, and who quite famously scores quite a lot of goals.

It was never a BAN. He was never, as one outlet put it, forbidden from ever taking the armband. And, lo and behold, last night after a classic 3-0 down half-time Raft Of Changes from Maresca, Haaland did indeed have the honour for the second half against PSG. Where he duly scored two goals, and celebrated them.

Now, notwithstanding the fact that Manchester City celebrating goals at all is currently verboten because how very dare they, this has prompted a response. From the Daily Mirror, who were the most excitable of all the outlets back in August and responsible for the BANNED headlines.

Erling Haaland instantly breaks Enzo Maresca rule TWICE in Man City vs PSG thriller

Add it to the list of charges, lads. And the intro doubles down.

Erling Haaland broke a long-standing Enzo Maresca rule by celebrating his goals against Paris Saint-Germain while being Manchester City captain. The striker scored twice in the second half of his side’s thrilling 4-2 defeat to Luis Enrique’s charges, with PSG three goals in front at half-time.

Except… no he didn’t. The Mirror have managed here to completely miss the whole point of Maresca’s joke, despite being absolutely furious about it at the time and now.

They even carry the quote again in this article insisting Haaland broke the rule. We’ll repeat it again with our own added emphasis for effect.

“At Leicester and Chelsea, I had a rule that when we scored, the captain had to come to the bench for instructions and not celebrate,” Maresca revealed in his first interview since taking charge at City.

“But if he scores, then he can celebrate…”

But if he scores, then he can celebrate. That was key to the whole thing. Maresca’s whole joke was built on the fact that the goalscorer exception to his rule would make Haaland a sub-optimal captain because he scores so many of City’s goals. It was not a complicated gag. We really shouldn’t be having to explain it two months later.

Yet on the Mirror go, even after including the original quote from Maresca that explains why Haaland didn’t break his rule.

With Dias off the pitch, Haaland was seemingly the next choice but he had no plans to follow Maresca’s rule.

HE DIDN’T BREAK THE RULE

Rather than heading over to the touchline, he fist-bumped the air before having a brief conversation with Josko Gvardiol on his way back to the halfway line after a superb glancing header.

THAT DOESN’T BREAK THE RULE

With City three goals down prior to his strike, Maresca’s rule may not apply with the City boss walking slowly around his technical box, arms folded, as opposed to giving out instruction.

THE RULE DIDN’T APPLY BECAUSE HAALAND SCORED THE GOAL

In the immediate aftermath of his second goal – which came after PSG had restored their three-goal lead – Haaland simply ran back to the halfway line.

THAT ALSO DOESN’T BREAK THE RULE

While not covered specifically, Maresca almost certainly meant that the rule largely applies when City score either first or to extend their advantage with the celebrations lasting longer than Haaland’s two against PSG.

You know what was covered specifically? THAT THE RULE DOESN’T APPLY IF THE CAPTAIN SCORES THE GOAL.

Sorry for yelling, but what is going on here? We feel like we’re taking crazy pills.

Butcher’s block
Missing words time as yet another headline is heartbreakingly left without quite enough space to include the detail that renders it an irrelevance. Must be genuinely gutting for headline writers how often this happens. The Mirror are today’s unfortunate victims.

Man Utd told to suspend Lisandro Martinez immediately despite new public statement

Those key absent words this time are ‘by Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink’. Listen, fair play, that’s a long name to squeeze in.

If you’ll allow Mediawatch a brief moment of indulgence to award ourselves two ego puff points, we said yesterday that the response to Lisandro Martinez saying a lot of things that almost everyone agrees with could be summed up in a single Marge Simpson quote: “Hmm. That’s true, but he shouldn’t say it.”

Here’s what Hasselbaink then said:

“His points are valid but do I think he should say it? That’s a different story.”

Is it possible Hasselbaink is in fact a big Simpsons fan? We’d love to think so. We’ll know for sure when he turns up for his next Sky Sports News gig and responds to a question about Florian Wirtz’s ongoing struggles by performing the Monorail song in full.