Now, if I were the manager of Manchester City, after they were found guilty of breaching the Premier League’s financial rules, my entire psychology with my squad this week would revolve around one key point:
“No one will love us, but we won’t care.”
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I loved being the underdog and I loved proving people wrong and now that’s what I would demand – a siege mentality to prove to people both from my team and from my supporters that we respect our club and we will fight, no matter what happens off the pitch, on the pitch or on the terraces.
City will be reviled by all, but their players have a great opportunity to show unity and togetherness, starting with the trip to Liverpool on Sunday.
“The supporters will shed their blood on the away field”
When the Premier League returns this weekend, the focus will be on one game in particular – at Anfield.
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As well as preparing for such a big match, City’s players will return from international duty and head straight for an off-field battle that has become a media frenzy.
The claims seem relentless with every Tom, Dick and Harry jumping fingers to hit a club that has dominated the Premier League for over a decade.
It feels like every positive thing City achieved during that period and beyond has been forgotten. However, despite all of the above, the club remains steadfast in its denial of all allegations.
So where does that leave Enzo Maresca and his City players as they prepare to face Liverpool?
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First of all, although they are not involved in any of the allegations that the club has breached the Premier League’s financial rules, they must understand that fans in every ground will be bleeding.
City have become the kind of team that every time they play, they will have the opportunity to attack all critics and from all sides – including the angry media outlets.
So, as a manager, Maresca must first act to reassure his players that the club has no intention of backing down from protecting their position, as well as that of the players, staff and supporters.
Once that is established, I would expect each player to focus on what is being paid to win the game.
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There should be no distractions or any questions unrelated to the games they are participating in. There are no excuses for what happened off the pitch and that would be my final word on the matter.
Are the FFP rules correct?
If City’s ruling for breaching the Premier League’s financial rules stands, it will cost the club and its reputation dearly.
I believe that more attention should be paid to all these rules and their fairness, because professional football at the highest level is now dominated by huge financial investments.
Even if you just consider player transfers, it’s not unusual for around a billion pounds to be exchanged between clubs in England and around the world during each transfer window.
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Top individual players are being bought and sold for over £100m, while smaller academies are being plundered by big clubs.
They can snap up top young players for smaller ‘compensation’ payments, allowing them to polish them up and then sell them on for more – with no Financial Fair Play rules governing how much they can make.
I suppose it’s a way of dealing with FFP, but is it for the good of the game or the players involved?
Over the years of Premier League management, clubs have flouted existing FFP rules. Some haven’t been caught yet, I’m sure, but some have been punished and punished. This continues, are the current rules correct?
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Should we try to change them, or are we taking a bigger risk by guiding clubs to find different ways – or loopholes – to try to break the financial shackles that currently exist?
The money in our game today is extraordinary and today huge corporations, billionaires and even countries are buying our clubs and want to invest more and more in the product, but they can’t.
Gone are the days when local business owners bought out their local clubs.
In the Premier League, Tony Bloom at Brighton and Matthew Benham at Brentford are the last men standing, and in the Championship the Coates family at Stoke City and Steve Gibson at Middlesbrough are among the few to have tasted the top flight.
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I always see top clubs having the financial strength to stay at the top, but there is a way for smart people at clubs without big money or big history – like the ones I mentioned above – to play a leading role in the top league of world football.
All the negative media attention at the moment is on Manchester City getting it wrong, but the likes of Brighton, Bournemouth and Brentford have succeeded by being smart without the ‘big club’ label.
It’s great to see, but surely the rules should reward all clubs for being smart. Doing the right thing should give everyone a chance to compete at the highest level.
Tony Pulis spoke to BBC Sport’s Chris Bevan.