Opinion: Liverpool don’t deserve to be called our rivals

Many pundits are tipping Liverpool to run Man City a close second in the 2018/19 title race, with some (admittedly Liverpool ex  players and fans) actually tipping them to finish first.

Some pundits have even taken the games between City and Liverpool last season to suggest Liverpool are in some way our Kryptonite and that we have some kind of Scouse nemesis.

In this blog I wanted to skip through some of this history and to explore what I really feel about Liverpool. And to explain why I don’t consider them rivals and how despite the behaviour of their fans, I don’t mind them anymore than I mind Everton.

I don’t have any deep seated pathological loathing for Liverpool. They simply aren’t important enough. And that is probably enough to set off a billion Liverpool fans into a spice frenzy, to type insults of the poorly spelt variety at me.

From a City point of view Liverpool aren’t much more than a comedy distraction. Back in 2014 we caught up an impossible lead they had on us. Big thanks to Slippy Stevie G.

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Sure, we haven’t got a great record against them but to be frank, we haven’t got a great record against a lot of teams. Liverpool were a really big team back in the 1970s and 1980s. But Evil Kinevil was big then and so was Hector’s House. It doesn’t mean they are big now.

Do you remember what you were doing on May 3 2003? Over 15 years ago. Well that was the last time we won at Anfield in the league. In a wonderful bit of bertying Anelka scored twice as we came from behind. 90th minute winner at Anfield. Genius.

So we’ve got a bad record but they aren’t our nemesis. That’s probably Wigan. It’s certainly Wigan who I have hated losing to in recent seasons.

What Liverpool fans say is they have history, which is the kind of comment designed to rile a City fan as it deliberately overlooks that we won major trophies first including a European trophy.

They say they are the bigger club. Which is a redundant argument for me, as what am I going to say in response? That I will change my allegiance?

The other thing about the bigger club argument is that it’s not based on any actual facts. City have had the bigger attendances. But Liverpool fans point to their European Cups as what makes them big. But that’s the trouble. Nottingham Forest have won a couple too. It doesn’t matter. It’s irrelevant. Being a big club isn’t about something that happened before your Twitter fan base was actually born.

Liverpool haven’t won the league title since the 1980s. That’s so long ago it’s of no real relevance. It’s before modern football. Leicester have won the title more frequently in modern times.

So how can Liverpool be a threat? Well they’re not is the answer. But they want us to think they are just to make them relevant.

That’s what the media does. There is a red bias one way or another in most of the media and that’s understandable really. Most of the people in the media with influence are of a certain age.

People of that age probably supported the most successful team that was around when they were kids. They weren’t forced into supporting a team at birth, even a poor team like we were. None of us actually had a choice.

So Liverpool are part of the media darlings and there is a narrative constructed around that. A romanticised attempt at making teams of the past like Liverpool relevant.

The best piece this week on BBC Sport website has seen an article suggesting Liverpool wrongly finished 25 points behind City last season due to bad luck.

Liverpool fans have had the kind of sense of entitlement we have always hated in United fans. That rubs us up the wrong way. The fans are like Celtic fans. Persistent, lacking in logic and like annoying midges on social media.

They are not really any bother just tiring. Most Liverpool fans I know are more self deprecating than their counterparts on Twitter. But I guess generally social media brings out the worst in many people. City fans too some times.

I remember playing Liverpool in the League Cup final a couple of years ago. I was sat with my Dad at Wembley when some City fans started on a young bloke with his kid. A pair of Liverpool fans who’d bought a ticket off a tour not realising it was in the wrong end.

A couple of City fans were silly that day and we had to take those Liverpool fans under our wing and keep them safe. But my point is there is nothing fundamentally wrong with Liverpool fans. Although i tend to find their famous Scouse humour is seldom in evidence.

There are two further instances in recent months which have begun to cement and harden attitudes of City fans towards Liverpool. Firstly it’s the behaviour of Liverpool fans, aided and abetted by Merseyside Police and Liverpool Football Club, in their attack on the Manchester City team bus.

I accept as I said before there can be idiots on all sides but it’s the lack of class in promoting the crass attack which rankles most.

Secondly, Reds fans and their incessant talk of academy products and net spend. I actually think many of them fail to grasp that winning the net spend trophy just means you are a selling club. A stepping stone for players to trade up from and move on. There is nothing good about winning the net spend trophy.

So Liverpool fans may lack some class, and some may be a few sandwiches short of a picnic but none of that makes them relevant to us.

I said before, that I have no axe to grind with Liverpool. I lived there for a while in the 1980s. I lived in Tuebrook, a place name which can only be said in a Scouse accent. I loved Sayers and fancied half the cast of Brookside.

But despite what their fans tell you, it doesn’t make them our bogey side. Don’t rise to the nonsense; it’s just trying to put a team who finished 25 points behind us and who haven’t won a league title in modern times as relevant to us. Don’t rise to the bait. Just ignore it. Don’t give them the credit of actually being our rivals.

Do Liverpool actually have a chance of winning the title in years to come?