As Manchester United v Liverpool meet again with contrasting fortunes, when was the rivalry last competitive enough to be considered ‘proper’?
THE word heavyweight was used a lot in Jurgen Klopp’s press conference this morning.
It wasn’t to describe a potential 12-round bout between the Liverpool boss and Gabby Agbonlahor. Nor was it a nod to The Reds’ growing injury list.
It was Manchester United versus Liverpool – Sky’s showpiece which is billed as the money shot of Premier League viewing.
Let’s line all the subheadings up now: the most hated rivalry in the country. The two most successful teams in England. The most watched game in the Premier League.
We can say with a degree of certainty the last line remains true. As for the other two? They remain intrinsically linked but increasingly debatable.
Whenever opinion about this rivalry wages, supporters adamant it’s the biggest are often those advocating the most hate towards the other.
There is a need for validation in channelling such aggression and dislike, after all. Like many others my age, I remain in a conscious state of tempered emotion toward this fixture.
Anyone who lived through the 1995-2010 domination of United may, like me, incur a slight case of Stockholm syndrome resulting from what they achieved and how they did it.
I understand that’s easier if you don’t have to live around them and probably explains why I’d rather see them win a game than Everton win a corner.
Perhaps this colours the narrative I’m pushing that this may not be the crowning jewel in the English football calendar. Part of the reason why is we’ve never got to see these two clubs compete for the major honours for any amount of time since 1992.
This has been a rivalry based on trophy counts but mostly just spoiling each other’s fun. The cities are very different, the people can be slightly similar but often polar opposite and the culture indeterminable.
When United all but lost the league at Anfield in ‘92, the Liverpool crowd were jubilant and crowing in the knowledge Leeds United were on course to win the title.
Many United fans faced their worst fears that day, but many of them knew they were passing Liverpool on the stairs. Some 25 years later, as they sing about a Chelsea striker winning the league for Manchester City and continually adore their closest rivals for stopping us, Liverpool climbed back to the ascendancy United were descending from.
Ultimately, it becomes about the brag, about “where’s your European Cups?” and “20 times, 20 times I say”. Like much of football, it’s more about insecurity and validation and less about what makes a rivalry work to the point in which it’s functional and, in its own way, healthy.
Liverpool and City has been the biggest rivalry our club has had in 30 years, the same could be said about United and Arsenal. Why? Because it was built on foundations of present success and competition.
Both rivalries have been felt more in the dressing room than in the stands. They create pulsating football matches which are breathless to consume and they often signify the benchmark for elite performance on a domestic and European scale.
What Liverpool and City have created should be respected more by themselves. It’s understandable that it isn’t when so much is currently at stake. One day they might look across the ring and know they’ve put on an absolute feast of an encounter which went the whole way.
There’ll be no shortage of anticipation for Monday night’s game at Old Trafford and rightly so. It’ll be viewed across the world as a game both sides can ignite their season with a win.
But it has come to resemble something of an “El Clasico” feel. A bit of lip service in a creaking cauldron which looks tired. A game which would have been a Super League lover’s dream. A valentine’s day cliche.
Perhaps the saddest indictment about Monday is the thing I’m dreading most is more Hillsborough chants that Liverpool’s end will inevitably find a way to rise above.
Whatever the full-time outcome, this game isn’t and has never been a Premier League pacesetter. It’s merely now an undercard to a true heavyweight bill Liverpool remain part of.
It might be the one both need to win for their own reasons. It might be the one you least want to lose, but it’s also one which decides nothing in its own context.
Maybe, in our lifetime, it never will.
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I don’t normally comment on these, but I’ll take the bait here. Liverpool vs United will always be the biggest, most meaningful rivalry because it’s based on two behemoths EARNING their place at the top of English football. It doesn’t matter that they’ve never really been at the pinnacle at the same time (2009 about as close as it got to that) – part of the reason these two clubs hate each other is because each knows that the other built themselves into the trophy-collecting juggernauts they became. There’s an unspoken respect and acknowledgement hidden in the hate and bile. That’s why it’s important and why it matters. I couldn’t stand United growing up, but deep down I wished we had what they did. Ultimately I was jealous because they’d done the right things over a long period that took them to the top and kept them there for a long time.
On the other hand, if you want to talk about ‘the most hated rivalry’, then I suppose I despise what Man City are far more than I ever did United, but that’s because there’s no respect from my side. They have played the game on cheat mode, haven’t made their own success (they’re lottery winners, not self made millionaires), are owned by appalling barbaric people, exist in their current form for terrible reasons, and have ultimately destroyed the competitive landscape of football, punishing those (yes, ok… us) who have actually done it the right way, only spending what’s been earned and attempting to do things organically.
So what if the quality of the two teams in this new rivalry is better than in the Man United one? – ultimately it’s so much more meaningless and artificial, and from my side at least, completely lacks any respect or acknowledgement of what the other side are. I was bitter towards Man United but I truly hate everything that Man City are and everything that they’re doing. That’s not what should make a rivalry though.
And worst of all, when pieces like this come out playing down the United rivalry and playing up the City one, then you’re helping to legitimise the latter, which is exactly what their terrible owners want. We don’t need Man City – in fact, football as a whole could really do without Man City – but they certainly need us. Competing with our name, our history and our reflected glory sadly helps them achieve their awful ambitions.