For years, Liverpool and Manchester City met with little separating them beyond the smallest margins.

A goal here. A point there. A late winner, an agonising draw, a title decided by a single point.

That history has not disappeared, but the backdrop to Sunday’s meeting at Anfield has changed.

Manchester City will arrive on Merseyside as the Premier League’s leaders, with a perfect five-game record under new head coach Enzo Maresca. Liverpool, unbeaten but less convincing in their opening five matches, sit sixth, six points behind the champions after three draws.

But this is the first meeting between the clubs since an independent Premier League commission found City guilty of serious financial-rule breaches covering nine seasons between 2009-10 and 2017-18.

The commission found that City had used sham commercial agreements to artificially inflate revenue and reduce costs, filed misstated accounts and significantly breached Premier League and UEFA spending limits. It also found that the club had committed multiple breaches of its obligations to cooperate with the Premier League’s investigation. The league said the findings established that City had clearly intended to circumvent its rules.

City deny wrongdoing and have appealed. Their appeal is now being handled by an independent three-person board, with the hearing remaining private until an outcome can be published.

So when Liverpool and City walk out at Anfield on Sunday, there will be two stories running simultaneously.

There is the football.

And there is everything that has happened around it.

Liverpool’s rivalry with City has never needed help becoming heated.

The Jurgen Klopp-Pep Guardiola era produced some of the Premier League’s defining title races. Liverpool’s 97-point campaign in 2018-19 was not enough. Neither was their 92-point tally two years later. The clubs pushed each other to standards that had previously seemed almost impossible to sustain.

That competitive history is why the verdict has landed differently in Liverpool than it might elsewhere.

There is no suggestion that Liverpool’s achievements should be rewritten before the appeal process has concluded, nor that Sunday’s match should become a referendum on a legal case still in progress.

But the commission’s findings inevitably add another dimension to the memories of those seasons.

The Premier League itself said the financial breaches affected a nine-season period and that, had the relevant agreements been reported accurately, City would have breached both its own spending limits and UEFA’s by a “very substantial amount”.

That does not determine what happened on a football pitch. It does, however, explain why this week’s meeting carries more than the usual historical baggage.

Liverpool’s supporters will not need reminding of how narrow some of those margins were.

The temptation would be to make Sunday’s game entirely about City.

Iraola cannot afford to.

Liverpool have begun the new season unbeaten, but their record of two wins and three draws tells a more complicated story. They have scored seven goals and conceded four, with three successive league draws at Anfield before the 1-0 victory at Bournemouth last time out.

That victory mattered.

Not because Bournemouth represented a particularly significant historical test, but because Liverpool needed to rediscover the ability to win a tight game after allowing points to slip away against Nottingham Forest and Fulham.

The City game is therefore an early examination of whether Iraola’s Liverpool can turn control into results against the strongest opponent they have faced.

The new head coach has inherited a squad built to compete at the top of the Premier League, but this is a different challenge to the one he encountered at Bournemouth.

City have already shown what their new manager can extract from them.

They have won all five league matches, scoring 13 goals and conceding five. Their 5-3 victory over Sunderland was the latest of those wins and left them three points clear at the top of the table.

Maresca’s first City side has therefore arrived at Anfield with momentum rather than uncertainty.

The financial verdict may dominate the headlines. It has not yet damaged City’s results.

There is another reason this fixture has become more difficult to read.

Neither side will arrive with a fully settled squad.

Liverpool already know Hugo Ekitike and Conor Bradley are unavailable, while Alexander Isak and Cody Gakpo remain concerns after withdrawing from international duty.

City have their own problems.

Erling Haaland was substituted during Norway’s defeat by Portugal after appearing to be struggling physically. Norway manager Ståle Solbakken subsequently sought to play down the concern, but Haaland’s condition will be one of the central questions of the week before he returns to Manchester.

Phil Foden is also suspended following his red card in the Manchester derby, while City have had other fitness concerns during the international break.

That matters tactically.

Haaland’s availability changes the problem Liverpool have to solve. His presence can pin centre-backs, create space for runners and turn relatively ordinary attacking sequences into high-value opportunities. Without him, City would need to construct their attack differently.

Likewise, Liverpool’s own forward situation could influence how aggressively Iraola wants to press and how much he asks his front line to defend from the first phase.

The irony is that the legal dispute has given the fixture an additional narrative at precisely the moment when the football itself is already fascinating.

This is perhaps the most important point to keep in view.

Manchester City’s punishment has not yet been decided.

The Premier League has said the sanction will be addressed separately, while City have appealed the guilty verdict. Potential sporting sanctions include fines, points deductions and other measures, but there is no settled punishment at present.

That means City are not arriving at Anfield knowing that their league position is provisional in any sporting sense.

They are top of the Premier League.

They have won every league match.

They have a new manager.

And they are currently playing as though none of the noise around the club can affect them.

That makes Sunday’s game more revealing, not less.

If City win at Anfield, Maresca’s side will have made an early statement about their ability to operate through the extraordinary circumstances surrounding the club.

If Liverpool win, Iraola will have produced the kind of result that can alter the perception of his opening months in charge.

A draw would probably leave the broader questions intact.

The reaction from the stands will be one of the most interesting parts of the afternoon.

City have already experienced the footballing consequences of their appeal process only in the abstract. Their players were not responsible for the conduct at the centre of the commission’s findings, and they remain focused on the season.

But Liverpool supporters have lived through the other side of the rivalry.

They remember the points totals, the title races and the years in which perfection was sometimes not enough.

The prospect of City’s first visit to Anfield since the verdict therefore gives the fixture an emotional charge that did not exist a month ago.

The challenge for Liverpool is to ensure that charge works for them rather than becoming a distraction.

Iraola’s side cannot spend Sunday attempting to settle arguments that belong in legal rooms. Their opportunity is simpler.

Beat Manchester City.

That would give Liverpool 12 points from their opening six league games, potentially transform the mood around the beginning of the Iraola era and provide the clearest evidence yet that this Liverpool side can compete with the Premier League’s strongest team.

For City, the equation is just as straightforward.

Keep winning while everything else happens around them.

That is why Sunday’s meeting matters.

The legal process will continue long after the final whistle at Anfield.

The football cannot wait.