Liverpool are the Beatles and Man City are Oasis, wishing they were the Beatles

Is there a football equivalent of two bald men fighting over a comb, i.e. has it produced a completely fatuous debate?

I think it has. And another comparison perhaps worth making regarding Trent Alexander-Arnold vs Erling Haaland is with the classic comedy sketch “The Four Yorkshiremen”. You’ll remember that one, I’m sure, from its many outings, the first being two Monty Pythons, one of The Goodies and Marty Feldman as self-made bores trying to outdo each other’s poverty-stricken beginnings – onedownmanship, if you like – with John Cleese recalling how he lived in a hole in the ground and Graham Chapman trumping him thus: “Well, we got evicted from our hole in the ground.”

In the English Premier League of course, no team play in a hole in the ground, and certainly not Manchester City or Liverpool. Even so, because the latter have only – only – spent £824 million to get to where they are compared with nearly £1.2 billion by their rivals, there’s an attempt by Alexander-Arnold to claim some kind of moral high ground.

“Looking back on this era,” says the Anfield star, “although they’ve won more titles than us and have probably been more successful, our trophies will mean more to us and our fanbase because of the situations at both clubs financially.”

Erling Haaland of Manchester City celebrates scoring his team's first goal during the Premier League match between Manchester City and Everton FC at Etihad Stadium on February 10, 2024 in Manchester, England. (Photo by Alex Livesey/Getty Images)

What does Alexander-Arnold mean here by “situations”? A dig at the fact City continue to be dogged by Financial Fair Play with 115 breaches still pending?

He adds: “How both clubs have built their teams and the manner we’ve done it means more to our fans. It’s tough. We’re up against a machine built to win. That’s the simplest way to describe City and their organisation.”

Alexander-Arnold appears to be making a point about authenticity, that Liverpool are more genuine and bona fide, real and rooted. They’re of the hugger-mugger red-brick terraces surrounding their stadium while City are of the couches of a private jet, later of a laboratory, and finally of a precision-tooled assembly line with Haaland the eureka-moment super-robot, constructed to resemble a thunder god. Liverpool are a club; City are a concept. This must be what Alexander-Arnold means by “organisation”.

City have heard all this before and must be getting heartily sick of it, though do they seem bothered? Is there evidence of it crippling their play? City, so the trope goes, are easy to admire but difficult to love. Liverpool, on the other hand, are “She Loves You” sung by the Kop, which doesn’t happen anymore but through half-shut, sentimental eyes the swaying mass can still be glimpsed, most sporting ties and the dental expertise of the time. Yes, Liverpool are the Beatles and City are Oasis who desperately wanted to be the Beatles but ended up little more than a tribute band, albeit a highly successful one. See, there’s the authenticity argument again.

Juergen Klopp, Manager of Liverpool, acknowledges the fans after the team's victory in the UEFA Europa League 2023/24 round of 16 first leg match between AC Sparta Praha and Liverpool FC at Letna Stadium on March 07, 2024 in Prague, Czech Republic. (Photo by Alexander Hassenstein/Getty Images)

What do we make of all this up here, where football budgets are a tiny fraction of Liverpool’s and in some cases wouldn’t pay for City’s monogrammed cooldown sweats, and how do we want today’s big game to go?

I don’t know a single Scot whose English team are City and yet almost every single one of them has been free and easy with their favours. It’s behaviour more typical of a wife-swapping party, an enticing opportunity to cast off the unswerving loyalty expected of us normally.

Select a team, then after a while, move on to a different one. We’ve all done this, yes? But it just hasn’t involved City. I’ve gone from Liverpool to Manchester United and back again, a switch no self-respecting proper fan of either of these fearsome Lancashire rivals could ever countenance. And wait, another set of keys has been thrown into the bowl … Leeds United. I always check Leeds’s results. I want Liverpool to win today. And ever since Charlie George prostrated himself on the Wembley turf, his long girlie hair shining in the FA Cup final sunshine, I’ve retained a soft spot for Arsenal. “Everyone thinks they’ve brought the prettiest wife to the swingers’ convention.” Didn’t Arsene Wenger once say something like that? Regarding English football, then, you’d have to call me polyamorous.

I want Liverpool to win today and to win the Premier League. Come on, they’ve been pretty irresistible, from Bill Shankly through the Dalglish/Souness/Hansen era and King Kenny’s reign as boss chipping in with title-clinching goals to the heavy metal football of the past few years under Jurgen Klopp.

All the tributes since the German announced he was leaving in the summer say the same thing: he got the club, understood the city. In a league of overwhelmingly foreign managers, many of whom hardly stay any time, that’s not always the case. Liverpool are more than a club, they’re a cause. And even through tinny TV speakers, Anfield rocks. At other grounds where there seems to be more football tourism, camera-phones omnipresent, that’s not always the Jimmy Case either.

Klopp will depart as one of English football’s great characters. His three-punch victory celebration has been copied by other managers, in the hope it might imbue them with some of the same charisma. He deserves more than one championship, having been twice pipped by City by a single point. But they like things that come in threes too, as evidenced by Haaland’s retort to Alexander-Arnold: “I’ve won the Treble and it was quite a nice feeling. I don’t think he knows exactly this feeling.” So I fear the machine, the organisation - and the thunder god.