The Reds have been the only ones to compete with Pep Guardiola's winning machine in recent years, but they've been left counting the cost
The clock may have said 11pm, the end of a long and tiring day of travel, but the mood in the passport queue at Liverpool John Lennon Airport was one of delight, happiness and celebration.
This was May 4, 2022, and a group of Liverpool supporters, returning bleary-eyed to Merseyside having attended their side’s Champions League semi-final win over Villarreal, had landed to the best news imaginable.
Improbably and implausibly, Manchester City had managed to throw away an unassailable lead to lose to Real Madrid in the other semi. They would not be joining the Reds in the final. Pep Guardiola’s side had blown their big chance. Again.
“Straight to town, surely?” came the shout as news of City’s collapse in the Bernabeu spread through the queue. Outside, as Ubers and Delta taxis waited to collect, a chant began.
The point of this story is not to remind City fans of their misery, or to poke fun at those Liverpool supporters for their premature celebrations – Real, after all, would go on to beat Jurgen Klopp’s side in the final.
🏆 TOP STORY: Barcelona confirm Messi return talks📣 HAVE YOUR SAY: Can Man City catch Arsenal?🚨 MUST READ: Arsenal are ten games from immortality
Rather, it is to reflect upon the nature of this most modern of rivalries, and the manner in which the two clubs’ fortunes have been so intrinsically intertwined over the past few years…
GettyWinning everything
For Liverpool to win, City must lose, and vice versa. That’s the way it has been as, for half a decade, these two sides have been the twin powers at the top of English football, thrilling us with their football, amazing us with their intensity, and setting new benchmarks in terms of consistency and points totals along the way.
What they have achieved is quite remarkable. In the space of five seasons between August 2017 and May 2022, City and Liverpool hoovered up four Premier League titles, two FA Cups, five League Cups, a Champions League, a UEFA Super Cup and a Club World Cup title.
At least one of them has been present in four of the past five Champions League finals, and the last five winners of both the PFA Player of the Year and the FWA Footballer of the Year awards have come either from the Etihad or from Anfield.
That kind of domination has not been seen in England since Manchester United and Arsenal did battle at the turn of the Millennium, when Sir Alex Ferguson and Arsene Wenger, the latest inductees into the Premier League hall of fame, were at their brilliant and antagonistic best.
AdvertisementGettyA growing enmity
Klopp and Guardiola’s rivalry, in fairness, has never quite descended into the kind of petty, tit-for-tat we saw during that Ferguson-Wenger era, although the off-field enmity between Liverpool and City has undoubtedly risen in recent years.
Last October’s meeting at Anfield, for example, was marred by complaints from both clubs about chanting, vandalism and coin-throwing.
There were unsavoury incidents at the League Cup fourth-round tie at the Etihad in December, while Saturday’s latest Premier League clash will be played in front of a reduced away end, City having restricted Liverpool’s ticket allocation by 20 percent following discussions with Greater Manchester Police – a move which led Liverpool to complain to the Premier League.
Steps have been taken to ease tensions – a joint statement was issued in the wake of that League Cup tie in December – but it is fair to say that there is little love lost between the clubs, particularly at executive level, and that is unlikely to change any time soon, particularly as City fight to clear their name having been accused in February of more than 100 breaches of the Premier League’s financial rules.
Liverpool, it is safe to assume, will be watching that case as closely as anybody. They, after all, are the ones who have pushed City hardest, the ones who have kept the league competitive as others have floundered.
Since 2018, the Reds have scaled heights few would have even countenanced previously. That they have 'only' one league title to show for such outstanding efforts is painful enough, so imagine if it were to now be proven that they, and the rest of the division, were playing against a marked deck all along.
GettyChasing perfection
It is fair to wonder whether City’s presence in recent years helped push Liverpool towards greatness, sharpening minds, narrowing focus and offering endless motivation.
But what has become apparent this season, too, is the toll that chasing such a powerful enemy has taken, on Klopp, on his players and on his supporters.
Life on a tightrope can be exhilarating, but it is also exhausting, and right now Liverpool look like a club which has been worn down by the endless quest (and need) for perfection, by the demands of going after the most expensively-assembled and brilliantly-coached team this country has seen.
How can it not take something out of you, when you produce three 90+ point seasons and don’t win the title in two of them? When you lose three league matches across two seasons and end up with only a pair of runners-up spots?
Liverpool ended a 30-year wait for a championship in 2020, and that will never be taken away, but their team, and their performances, over the last few years would have been good enough to secure a dominant era in years gone by.
It seems harsh to say, given the things they've won, the football they've played and the memories they've created, but Klopp's side have deserved more, and they would have had it were it not for Guardiola and City.
Certainly, Liverpool could hardly have done more last season, reaching three finals, collecting 92 points and losing only four of 63 matches across four competitions, and yet somehow it all finished with a sense of disappointment as City held on to their Premier League crown with a late, final-day fightback against Aston Villa and Real Madrid followed up with the old one-two in Paris.
A bus parade through the streets of Liverpool, a day after the Champions League final, brought some consolation and plenty of emotion, but it is easy to look at what has happened since and wonder whether some of Klopp's players knew, even then, that the summit may have been reached.
City would go again, everyone knew that, but could Liverpool?
Getty ImagesFalling off
Despite a belief, and indeed an insistence from within, that Liverpool would pick themselves up and challenge once more, the after-effects of that bruising 2021-22 campaign have been there for all to see since.
The Reds still have the same players and still try to do the same things with them. They still look to play the same way, but something has broken with Klopp’s side.
The legs don’t move as quickly, the minds don’t work as fast, and the fear factor has gone, or at least been significantly diminished. Important players suddenly look their age, new ones are yet to reach the same levels of consistency as the old ones, and the general mood around the club is one of doom and gloom, when for so long it has been defiance, optimism and certainty.
This season, Liverpool have lost eight league games, two more than they did in the 2018-19, 2019-20 and 2021-22 campaigns combined. Mohamed Salah has continued scoring, but the likes of Virgil van Dijk, Joel Matip, Joe Gomez, Fabinho, Jordan Henderson, Trent Alexander-Arnold and Andy Robertson have seen their form dip significantly.
Only goalkeeper Alisson Becker and teenage tyro Stefan Bajcetic, you would say, have really enhanced their reputation, although there is obvious promise in the attacking trio of Cody Gakpo, Luis Diaz and Darwin Nunez, all of whom have been recruited in the past 14 months.