Liverpool v Manchester United: when one’s up the other’s ‘down’

Funny rivalry, Liverpool and Manchester United. They are English football’s most successful clubs but there’s rarely been a moment in history when both of the clubs were competing against each other to be the toppermost of the poppermost. To use the pre-cancellation phrasing of former Stretford Ender Stephen Patrick Morrissey, the north-west giants oscillate wildly. Give or take the 2008-09 saga of Rafa Benítez’s “facts” and Kiko Macheda’s dance moves, and a 1995-96 campaign when Roy Evans’s men-in-white-suits party boys couldn’t keep pace with the Neville brothers’ early nights, you’d have to go back to the era of Shankly and Busby, the Beatles and the Hollies, for both clubs as the best around.

When one’s up, the other’s down, though both clubs are so bloody big that being “down” usually means a mid-to-higher table mediocrity of the type that someone like, say, Steve Parish at Crystal Palace would give up his Porsche and blowdryer for. This season, it’s Liverpool’s turn to man the doldrums. They’re a tough watch at the moment, the former Red Machine. Last week’s goalless draw at Parish’s Selhurst Colosseum was so lacking in entertainment and spark it made a Graham Potter press conference look like An Audience With Robin Williams. A midweek swiping aside of Wolves was better, but soft rock when compared to Jürgen Klopp’s most paint-stripping heavy metal thunder. “If you can’t find it, grind it” – as Football Daily’s driving instructor used to say – appears to be their route to the top four.

It might just work but Jürg meanwhile finds himself having to praise, yuk, Manchester United. “It’s pretty much impossible to be happy about something positive at Manchester United when you are the Liverpool manager,” he wailed.