Robertson acknowledges the contribution to his game of head physio Lee Nobes, hired from City. Now, unlike then, the two clubs are living in each other’s pockets, chasing the same players and recruiting each other’s staff. ‘When was the last time they won anything?’ he asked in a piece which ran under the headline: ‘We will bury the myth of Liverpool.’ Allison then proceeded to walk in front of the Kop, to the sound of ‘Allison, shut your mouth.’ Like Malcolm Allison, the manager who before City visited Merseyside in the early 1970s decided to ridicule Liverpool’s seven-year trophy drought. Saturday's clash will be only the second time in almost a decade that a Klopp side meets a Guardiola side with neither side top of the table It was different when rivalries were waged in public, led by people who were there, in plain sight, to make their feelings known. The remarkable inference from City that this was ‘borderline xenophobic’ led Klopp to lodge a legal complaint.
The City team bus had allegedly come under siege again and songs about Hillsborough and Heysel had been audible before Klopp, in line with what his owners felt about FFP, said Gulf-owned clubs could ‘do what they want’ financially. It was after one such experience that everything ratchetted up another notch last year. City have felt that some torrid Anfield experiences - the team bus coming under siege and Guardiola’s backroom staff being spat on - never seemed to elicit the probes they might have done. Liverpool fans not singing the national anthem before the 2019 Community Shield affronted some at the club.
It has not taken much to cause City offence, at times. At ownership level, Liverpool’s relationship with United is far more cordial. The suspicion has always been that Liverpool view City’s financial manoeuvres to contend with FFP as tantamount to cheating. Liverpool have always viewed UEFA’s Financial Fair Play as significant for owners like their own who do not have a ‘Sheik’ in their name, as John W Henry put it on his first day at Anfield. The away ticket allowance at the Etihad has been reduced to 500 fewer than numbers pre-covidĬity have always felt Liverpool get more attention than them. There was certainly no respect for Liverpool in the nasty little episode which was pivotal to this story of mounting dislike.Ĭity players, on their team bus after winning the 2019 title, sang about Liverpool fans being ‘battered in the streets’ and being ‘victims of it all’, to the tune of the club’s Allez, Allez, Allez. Henderson seemed to let his guard slip when he said he would rather watch children’s television than City, a mark of respect he subsequently insisted.
There was ‘no trash talk’ when it came to City, wrote Andy Robertson in his own book. You sensed Henderson’s need to keep emotion and indiscipline in check against this relentless City machine. It is a ‘battle where you have to stay in your shape, keep your concentration and not switch off for a second’, he said. In his memoir last year, Jordan Henderson gave an insight into the psychological challenge of facing City. Search for something incendiary about the fixture in the autobiographies of the players and you will find the going hard. There have been 43 for City and 36 for Liverpool since then. The last sending off in a game against Manchester City was Sadio Mane’s in 2017 and it has hardly been a sea of yellow cards. That rivalry was forged in games such as the 1985 FA Cup semi-final at Goodison Park, when the players kicked lumps out of each other after running pre-match battles in the streets. City v Liverpool has not always had this elemental intensity - even in the age of Guardiola v Jurgen Klopp - and for many in the Arkles, Liverpool v Manchester United means more.
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