Manchester City v Liverpool, tinfoil hats and a most modern rivalry

The Fiver lives for weeks like this. Ultimate Barclays, where hype ratchets up to the point where matches can never live up to the billing. Those occasions blown up to such Montgolfier Brothers’ balloon levels usually end up so low in entertainment that they would normally qualify for last place on Match of the Day 2. Long-time Fiver readers probably expect the old comedy one-two shuffle where this august banter email turns to the winner-takes-all battle between Norwich and Burnley, some meta riffs on Dean Smith’s ordinary-man demeanour, Delia Smith, Sean Dyche’s growling alpha realism and a sideways jibe towards Frank Lampard Frank Lamparding it at Frank Lampard’s Everton.

Instead, The Fiver gives the people what they want and turns attention to Manchester City versus Liverpool. Certain people are calling it the biggest rivalry ever in Premier League history. Lord Ferg versus Le Prof Wenger is old hat, daddy-o, keep your 20th century toxic masculinity of two ageing blokes staring each other out like Ken Barlow and Mike Baldwin in the Rovers Return.

Your 1990s lad-mag types, those who swill reassuringly expensive Tin, hold Benson’s betwixt thumb and forefinger and “bloody love Weller’s latest stuff actually” will tell you that Roy Keane’s blood vessels popping as he monstered Patrick Vieira was the real stuff. Weird Uncle Fiver breathes out Woodbine smoke wistfully as he recalls Bob Paisley’s carpet slippers taking on Cloughie’s squash racquet in the late 1970s. The problem with such nostalgia is that now is probably the first time English’s football’s best two teams may actually be world football’s best two teams. And even if Jürg and Pep call up the sick bucket as they whisper sweet praise of each other, there is a