I credit Stefan with changing their narrative.
On the face of it, talksport and that show would be the least likely place to elevate the conversation and start to change minds.
The fact Stefan has managed to in a few appearances over 6 months really shows IMO that the club could have successfully put forward a counter-narrative, just like Forest did before their hearings with the “Why should they sell Brennan Johnson inside the financial year if it cost them money compared to selling him in September” argument and Everton did by convincing a lot of people it was unfair to punish them for breaking the same rule twice in successive rules (something we are accused of!!).
We’ll never know, but I genuinely think the current public opinion - that City are dead to rights guilty and the only thing being decided is the punishment - was avoidable with decent PR.