Liverpool FC are great but Man City really don't want to be like them

To paraphrase Brian Clough, Liverpool and Manchester City might not be the greatest teams in the history of English football, but they’re in the top two. Fans of both teams are living in privileged times, watching two incredible trams slug it out for major honours, while the rest of football gets treated to sporting excellence and drama of the highest quality.

The Blues finished as champions, but the world fully expects Jurgen Klopp’s team to beat a lesser Real Madrid team at the weekend and add the Champions League trophy to the two domestic cups they have already won. Normal Liverpool fans are celebrating that fact, looking forward to an unforgettable night in Paris, and revelling in the knowledge they have a team that not only stands up there with their great sides of the 70s and 80s, but is probably better.

They are just unlucky to share the era with an exceptional City team, otherwise the dominance would be undisputed. But there are others, a noisy minority with a platform, rather than the sensible majority, who see fit to denigrate the achievements of Pep Guardiola and his team, and pour scorn on a fanbase that has repeatedly proved itself to be one of the most loyal in football.

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Which is fine, everyone is entitled to their opinion. But one article in an Irish newspaper this week tapped into something which gets the goat of not just City fans, but supporters of other clubs the length and breadth of the country, and explains why there was a groundswell of support for the Blues on Sunday that reached far beyond Manchester.

It explains why Everton fans, celebrating their team’s escape from relegation, were singing about having a party when City win the