For decades, the North West’s fiercest football rivalries were always between Liverpool and Manchester United. Yet over the past decade, the Liverpool v Manchester City fixture became the pinnacle of the domestic game. Driven by the contrasting tactical masterminds of Jurgen Klopp and Pep Guardiola, this match came to represent football played at its highest technical, physical, and psychological limits, with everything to play for every time.
Historically, Liverpool dominated these matches across through the 20th century, while City spent long periods outside the elite, struggling to regain top-flight status before securing big-money investment from the UAE and buying their way to Premier League success.
The dynamic shifted in April 2014, when a thrilling 3-2 victory for Liverpool at Anfield appeared to pave the way for a long-awaited league title, only for a late slip by Steven Gerrard against Chelsea to hand City the title.
The rivalry truly caught fire during the 2017-18 campaign. In January 2018, Liverpool ended City’s unbeaten league run in a pulsating 4-3 classic at Anfield, blowing the visitors away with three goals in nine minutes. Just three months later, the sides collided in the Champions League quarter-finals. Liverpool swept City aside 3-0 in a ferocious first-leg display at Anfield before completing a 5-1 aggregate triumph, signalling their arrival as serious European contenders.
What followed were two of the most relentless title races in English football history. In January 2019, City hosted Liverpool in a match settled by the thinnest margin imaginable. John Stones hooked the ball off the goal line by just 11 millimetres, and City edged a frantic contest 2-1. That single moment proved decisive as City won the league by a single point, 98 to 97.
The two heavyweights repeated that edge-of-the-seat drama in the 2021-22 season. In October 2021, the two sides produced a thrilling 2-2 draw at Anfield, featuring a sublime solo goal from the Egyptian King himself, Mohamed Salah. The return fixture at the Etihad ended with the exact same scoreline. City ultimately pipped Liverpool to the title on the final day by 93 points to 92, whilst Liverpool gained compensation with a 3-2 FA Cup semi-final triumph over City at Wembley on their way to lifting the trophy.
More than just local pride, Liverpool v City became a clash of titans. It demanded near-flawless football, where single mistakes or moments of genius determined whether a team secured a historic quadruple or fell agonisingly short.
City’s recent guilty verdict has soured this fixture somewhat and, as we prepare for next weekend’s Premier League clash at Anfield, the Kop will have something to say about the cheating that secured those titles for Pep Guardiola’s men over the years.
While the Premier League are yet to decide City’s fate, rewriting the history books will almost certainly not happen. Instead, we must move forward and just remember to point to the asterisks when explaining to our children why Liverpool were indeed the better team over that decade.
