Everyone is talking about the Manchester City vs Liverpool rivalry and whether it is the best in the history of English football. Those who disagree say that it is pretty good except that it's missing one crucial ingredient: violence. Sure, when you listen to the chants or look at social media you can see how things have turned a bit nasty between the fans - but do the players and the managers really give the impression of hating each other enough for us to class this alongside the greatest football rivalries?
We like to watch pretty high-energy football, but we also like it when Roy Keane and Patrick Vieira grab each other by the throat, or when Manchester United players take turns to brutalise Jose Antonio Reyes, or when Martin Keown jumps on top of Ruud van Nistelrooy to gloat over a missed penalty.
We laugh when the managers insult each other in the press, we scream with pleasure when Arsene Wenger is banished to an exposed plinth high in the Old Trafford stands, raising his long skinny arms in bewilderment while masses of gleeful United fans sing "sit down you paedophile". Yes, if only City and Liverpool could find a way to lace a bit more toxic hatred into the mix, maybe then our happiness would be complete.
In truth, Pep Guardiola and Jurgen Klopp would seem ridiculous if they ever got involved in some kind of macho confrontation. Between them there is something of the passive-aggressive crackle you expect to find between any high-level sportspeople competing for the same prizes - but there is no real bad feeling or ill-will. Why would there be? Much is made of their differences, of their contrasting ideas about the game, and yet when each looks at the other, he sees someone very like himself. Each has more in common with the other than he does with almost anyone else in the game.
Ken Early: Optimism is football's sweetest illusion, so Ireland should enjoy while it lasts
Ken Early: PSG owners have created a sporting Disneyland, with Messi as Mickey Mouse
Ken Early: Neither Maguire nor Ronaldo fit to lead Manchester United
Ken Early: What now for Abramovich and the Premier League?
This wasn’t the case when the rivalry was between Alex Ferguson’s United and Wenger’s Arsenal. There were many active ingredients in the explosive chemistry between those sides, but the most powerful was surely Ferguson’s resentment at the way the football world seemed to fall at Wenger’s feet upon his arrival from Japan. The press at the time used to marvel at the fact that Wenger spoke a couple of languages and had a degree. In other words, they were praising him for being a typical member of the west European middle class.
This prejudice was resilient: no matter how many Arsenal players were sent off they were always “fluid” and “artistic”; no matter how many childish tantrums he threw in defeat Wenger was always “professorial” or “urbane”.
Ferguson jealously contrasted this indulgence with the way the press condescendingly portrayed him as a shouty scrapper from Govan with a screw loose. It was as though he decided: ‘you want a scrapper? I’ll show you a scrapper.’ When United played Arsenal, they leaned into the thuggishness. “These don’t like it up’em.” The games were memorable, but not necessarily for the football. Never mind the quality, feel the bloodlust.
Guardiola and Klopp couldn’t go in this direction even if they wanted to. The rules and VAR won’t allow it. The shock-and-awe physical intimidation with which United stopped Arsenal’s historic unbeaten run at 49 matches would today be a recipe for a first half red card and a 5-0 defeat. The only flash of old-school intimidationball at the Etihad on Sunday was Fabinho’s ugly challenge to bring down Bernardo Silva, but even that was a mistimed tactical foul rather than a true “reducer”.
Imagine you took a group of coaches, players and fans from 20 years ago, and beamed them forward in time to watch yesterday’s match. Imagine their astonishment at the behaviour of Ederson, as he regularly rushed 40 yards out of his goal, or allowed a ball to almost roll into his own goal before kicking it away. Imagine the uncomprehending horror with which they would have watched Liverpool’s display of light-touch, zero-calorie defending in the first half - pushing up the field, giving the ball away, coughing up a massive chance, and then, undaunted, immediately going forward and doing it all over again? What are they doing, they would have screamed, what is this insanity? The cry would have been universal: fall back 15 yards, dig in, dig in if you want to live!
Dig in. If the big rivalries of the past were more notable for bad feeling than good football, it’s partly because the teams took little prompting to retreat to their trenches. Often that’s where they started the game, and that’s where they meant to stay. One reason why the stink rises and fish float belly up to the surface whenever Manchester United play Liverpool is that the fixture is characterised by desperation - specifically the desperation not to lose. Whenever they meet, one or both of the teams is invariably playing survival football.
Despite the rising stakes of their matches, City and Liverpool have not yet succumbed to this temptation. Liverpool knew that City had the weapons to expose their high line, but rather than take steps to reduce the risk they simply faced it, because it’s essential to their own attacking game. Their inquest into City’s second goal, when Jesus broke in behind the high line, will probably conclude that the problem was the line hadn’t pushed high enough.
City expertly found the weaknesses in Liverpool's defensive set-up and should have won the game in the first half. Instead, moments after the restart, Mane and Salah saw Kyle Walker hesitating for one second and punished him to grab another equaliser. Walker's frustration was clear as he booted the loose ball back into the net, but what he had done hardly even qualified as a mistake.
This is what the game can look like when teams are brave enough to keep attacking each other, when they refuse to allow fear to take control - a challenge which so often defeated the macho men of the past. If City and Liverpool are producing some of the best matches ever seen in the English leagues, maybe it’s precisely because they’ve set aside the anger and the violence and the posturing, and are pouring all their energy into the game instead.
