Manchester City and Liverpool are the two best club sides in the world and their new rivalry dominates English football
Jürgen Klopp says this will not be the title decider. OK, Jürgen. If you say so, Jürgen. Perhaps we can safely file that away with “every opponent is a tough opponent” and “we don’t look at the league table” in the catalogue of great managerial sleights of our time. The rest of us, meanwhile, are entitled to regard Manchester City v Liverpool for what it is: a fixture that has been burning a hole in the schedule since August, that as the weeks passed was anticipated first in hope, then in expectation, and now finally in a barely disguised longing.
It is more than five years since Klopp and Pep Guardiola first clapped eyes on each other across a crowded Premier League technical area. In that time they have built a rivalry that in terms of sheer brutish footballing quality may be the finest English football has seen. The game is fitter and faster, more complex and refined than it has ever been. The Norwich City of 2022 would wipe the floor with Manchester United’s class of 1992. And at the vanguard of the revolution, these two coaches, these two clubs: a duel worthy of being anointed as England’s clásico, a buffet of the very finest fare this sport has to offer.
