In a world of pundit non-answers, Paul Merson’s emphatic speech on Manchester City‘s cheating is the kind that we all wanted to hear.

The weekend’s return of the Premier League saw pundits and managers alike fielding the question of what to do with City.

While it is understandable, if a little disappointing, that managers dodged the question, even pundits who are paid to have an opinion steered clear.

Merson did no such thing.

The Soccer Saturday panellist, who is not a stranger to saying what he thinks even if it goes against the grain, launched into a tirade about City’s owners and how their cheating robs others of moments.

“Ask yourself one question: Would Man City have won the Premier League if they didn’t do what they were doing?” he said. “Absolutely no chance. No chance, because they wouldn’t have been able to.

“They would have been so far behind everybody else because of the revenue they were bringing in with the PSR and all that kind of stuff. They would have been left behind.

🔥 WATCH THIS: Paul Merson RAGING at Manchester City over their industrial-scale cheating, and the moments they’ve denied other teams, players and fans.

Merse is saying what a lot of fans have been feeling since the guilty verdicts. The cheating didn’t just help City. It won them the Premier League. He says there’s “absolutely no chance” they would have done it without it.

Without the ability to ignore PSR the way everyone else had to, they would have been miles off the top teams. They simply wouldn’t have been able to compete with the legitimate revenue streams the others were generating.

The players didn’t win those leagues, “them upstairs” did, by buying all the best players and building a squad no one else was allowed to match.

When Clinton Morrison tried to defend them (“they still have to go out and play, Merse”), Merson nearly exploded:

“OH COME ON! They had all the best players! They had two best players in every position and they dominated!”

Then he went further. Medals and trophies are almost irrelevant next to what actually matters. Life is about moments, and City’s ownership have taken those moments away from other people.

He pointed to Manchester United at Sunderland in 2012 — the day Aguero scored in the last seconds against QPR to clinch City’s first title, while United were left standing on the pitch at the Stadium of Light. That was at the height of the cheating.

“Life is all about moments and you’ve taken it away from other people. Them upstairs at Man City have nicked other people’s moments in life.”

Well put, @PaulMerse 👏

— J Stewart (@triffic_stuff_) October 10, 2026

“So all of a sudden, what they’d done made them win the league. Because of them upstairs, they’ve won the league. They’ve won the league because they just put all the best players together.”

At this point, Clinton Morrison offered the rather boring retort that the players still had to go out and play and Merson was having none of it.

“Oh come on! They didn’t have to. They had all the best players. They had the two best players in every position, in every position, and they dominated.

“And I used to sit on here and watch the games, right? And teams would go there petrified, and they beat teams five, six, seven and they would destroy teams.

“It was embarrassing. It was like teams would go there and get their stomachs tickled for a two-nil. If it weren’t for them upstairs, they wouldn’t have been able to do it.

READ: Ian Wright is England’s most vindicated man after refusing to ignore Man City’s 115 charges

“I’d have a sour taste in my mouth [if I was a player]. It’s not about medals, it’s the moments.

“You’ve taken moments away from other people. Look at that one with [Phil] Jones and Sir Alex Ferguson, and they’re waiting at Sunderland. You’ve taken it away.”

Compare this then to the bizarre take of Joe Cole, who suggested financial doping your club so that you have the best players on the planet is not as bad as taking performance-enhancing drugs.

“Like Lance Armstrong, performance-enhancing drugs, that’s abhorrent,” Cole said. “That’s cheating, right? Match fixing like the Juventus team. That’s cheating.

“This is not cheating. This is something where they brought the club, and then these rules come in place.

“It’s not on the same level. There’s levels of cheating. You go from drug doping, and you go to trying to influence the referees.

“Because what about Pep Guardiola, Kevin De Bruyne, all of them great players? Them boys, the only pure thing with football is what goes on on the pitch. And we’ve seen what’s happened. They’ve changed football.”

Give us strength.

READ NEXT: Remembering Nicolas Anelka’s brilliance in a flawed Man City side

TRY A QUIZ: Can you name every Man City manager’s most expensive signing since 2000?