A different league table.
Take out every Manchester City result. See who lifts the trophy, reaches Europe or stays up.
How trophies and player medals are modelled
Club honours: 18 Premier League titles, 18 FA Cups and 18 League Cups, from 2008/09 to 2025/26. These are period totals, not all-time club records. City is included in the actual honours table and has no trophies in this scenario. Clubs tied on trophy totals share a rank.
League: the champion is calculated from the same results used in Table explorer. Each season stands alone. We retain real squads and transfers. Alternative automatic medal eligibility uses ten league appearances before 2012/13 and five thereafter, excluding appearances against City. Borderline players are checked against the City match sheets. When a player has at least two appearances above the threshold, eligibility is certain even if both City games are removed; an exact remaining appearance count is not invented.
Cups: only the eleven domestic finals City won are reassigned, to their actual opponents. All other winners stay as recorded. This is an explicit trophy-reallocation scenario, not a prediction of a replayed tournament. Earlier-round eliminations, Community Shields and European trophies are excluded. These cup assumptions do not change European qualification in the league tables.
Player medals: the change ledger covers only the eight league titles and eleven cup finals that change hands, not full career honours. City’s league losses use the published Premier League winning-player register. Alternative league gains use automatic eligibility only; discretionary medals are not assumed. Cup gains and losses use each final’s named starting XI and substitutes, including unused substitutes. Earlier-round participants and other discretionary recipients are outside this model. Names absent from this ledger should not be read as proof that a player never received a medal.
No player valuations. These are sporting honours only. Club revenue scenarios remain in Financial impact and do not determine who receives a trophy.
Premier League medal rules · Winning-player register and historical threshold · FA Cup winners · League Cup winners. Individual season and final sources are linked in the detail views. Research checked 4 October 2026.
The assumptions travel with the numbers.
League-position money
We apply the same season’s 20-position merit-payment schedule to the real and recalculated ranks, then subtract. Both UK and international merit are included from 2019/20. The 19th club receives the 19th-position tariff. City’s remaining money is not redistributed, and there is no extra title bonus.
Equal shares, TV-appearance payments, sponsorship, wages, tax and the gate lost from removing a home match against City are outside this model. Figures are nominal, with no inflation adjustment.
Estimated tariffs: 2008/09 uses a rounded contemporary estimate; 2019/20 and 2020/21 use 2021/22 as a proxy within the same rights cycle; 2025/26 uses 2024/25. These are labelled and can be excluded. Published rounded tables remain rounded; the calculations do not create greater accuracy.
Potential European revenue
Qualification from a domestic season is valued using the following season’s UEFA tariffs. We compare the main-phase participation fee and the selected win/draw bonuses in both the actual and alternative competitions. Upgrading from Europa League to Champions League subtracts the Europa League scenario; it does not credit the whole Champions League amount.
Every scenario assumes the club reaches the main phase. Entry may require qualifying rounds, particularly pre-2018 Champions League places and Europa/Conference routes. These are conditional scenarios, not minimum guaranteed receipts, predictions, probabilities or statistical confidence intervals.
Market pools, coefficient/value payments, league-phase ranking shares, knockout bonuses, qualifying payments, redistribution of drawn-match money and pandemic rebates are excluded. Same-competition changes therefore show £0 for this subset even where total UEFA income might change. The actual route is valued with the same scenario, not the club’s actual European results.
Euro amounts are converted using the ECB GBP/EUR reference rate on 30 June of the domestic closing year (or the preceding business day). This is a fixed valuation convention, not an actual payment-date conversion.
One cup opponent at a time
Each card asks what extra prize money a club could secure by progressing past its tie with City, then exiting at the next stage. The formula is: current-round winning award − actual exit award + next-round exit award. For a final, it is the winner’s award minus the runner-up award. Progression and a final win are assumptions, not reassigned historical trophies.
Replays count once. Two-legged ties are decided on aggregate; penalty shootouts are resolved. The list includes lower-league clubs and Welsh clubs in the English domestic competitions. The Community Shield, Club World Cup, women’s and youth competitions are outside scope.
Cases in one cup run overlap, so there is no sum of all cup opportunities. We do not simulate a new draw, later wins, or a different European berth for each hypothetical cup winner. The league’s European-place model still retains historical cup routes.
FA Cup prizes use historical schedules and dated FA announcements. The 2025/26 final awards use a labelled later-schedule proxy because the original and later FA schedules conflict. League Cup final awards use a reported £100,000/£50,000 proxy; other League Cup round prizes remain unpriced where reliable season-specific tariffs were not established. Unpriced does not mean £0. Gate receipts, TV fees and costs remain unpriced throughout.
Relegation, coverage and reading the totals
The original table experiment removes City’s fixtures, keeps points deductions and treats the bottom three of 19 as relegated. Each season is independent. It does not change future participants. Relegation changes are flagged, but future broadcasting income, parachute payments, Championship earnings and costs have not been priced.
The combined model is only league merit change + the chosen European scenario. It excludes every cup opportunity and all other unpriced effects. It is not a total financial loss or gain. A sporting winner can still lose revenue under a different component or assumption.
Use the club breakdown for actual/revised ranks, points and goal difference, the arithmetic, tariff quality, exchange rate and direct sources. Research snapshot: 3 October 2026. Completed seasons only.