English football is at a cultural crossroads yet again, whilst its two biggest clubs Liverpool and Manchester United seem far from top dogs…
MANCHESTER UNITED versus Liverpool.
Cotton mills and docks. More in common than what divides. Royalty of the game with the pedigree to prove it.
Currently an identity is lost. For recent years this only extended to United, now Liverpool. Some would argue a role reverse in fortunes, of sorts, but Michael Carrick still flatters to deceive for the long-term.
Sunday’s fixture will be a proxy war. Two titans playing for crumbs of third to fifth place. They aren’t entitled to top spots and nor should they be, but they should always be trying to reach them.
Arne Slot rocked up to Old Trafford in 2024 with a plan of making Casemiro look foolish and Luis Diaz look unplayable. It worked, and the Dutchman carried that momentum right through to being crowned Premier League champions.
That incarnation of Liverpool feels presently as far away as any of the last great sides from 1970 onwards.
This game will be different. United will be buoyed by recent form and confident they can lay a glove on Liverpool.
Without Mohamed Salah and maybe Alisson Becker, there’s a whiff of vulnerability about The Reds as they head into this one. Still, a fixture like this should sharpen the focus. We’ve seen United and Everton sides far inferior raise games and get results against Liverpool in the past, so adopting an underdog status in this one might be no bad thing.
The fixture’s importance pales into context of the title race happening overhead, the fact that Tottenham could be relegated or the feast of football provided by Paris Saint-Germain and Bayern Munich this week.
It was a display of continental swagger. The type of sexy European football you come to mysticise about over the years. What are they smoking over there in Bavaria?
It also created a sideways glance. The meme of you looking back at the stunning woman while you’re holding hands with Arne Slot.
Every club should be aspiring to emulate that game on such a stage. To display such reckless abandon in the name of attacking football.
Slot had the opportunity to pit himself against Luis Enrique for the second time in consecutive years in the previous round, and his conservatism during the first leg was further brought into focus as a result of Munich’s determination to stand and fight.
For 25 minutes across two legs, Liverpool took it to PSG. Slot stood by his back five in Paris, but ultimately there should be some regret.
The reality is that PSG are always capable of scoring five in a game, regardless of formation and approach. The difference between Liverpool and Munich is that Vincent Kompany had a plan to score four. We didn’t.
Arsenal have drawn stinging criticism for their anti-football approach this season. They prioritise the game with equal importance with and without the ball in play. A dead ball situation becomes its own choreographed routine. It’s a Super Bowl of shit that nobody finds attractive.
And yet the English argument all year has been that this is somehow our DNA. That long throws and pumped free-kicks are the ultimate leveller we’ve been sadly missing.
The blitz spirit adopted by English football was made a mockery of midweek by two teams who just wanted to play football.
There are plenty of reasons why these two were able to put on such a colossal footballing spectacle and so much does relate to their domestic dominance and schedule.
By comparison, English teams look tired and battle-worn. There is no gloss to be applied, even from the remaining Pep Guardiola’s Manchester City team.
United and Liverpool should and will rightly feel miles away from Bayern and PSG. But the needle has moved so far domestically that the question should be whether they even want to try and emulate such identities.
Getting the ball in-play and down has become its own topic of debate in this country. The darkest of arts, from setting up to nullify short goal kicks to questioning the integrity of head injuries is talked about more than a moment of brilliance with the ball. It feels there’s more of an existential crisis happening in the Premier League about what football is.
All the while, the continent’s finest – one of whom is led by perhaps the most archetypal representation of an Englishman of the past 15 years – cuts loose with a dazzling display of footballing bravery and razzamatazz.
For Liverpool, there’s a suggestion that getting anywhere near the top means they should try to emulate such ideals. That they should fight for the soul of ‘the Liverpool way’ and die on the hill of good football. The same can be said for United.
To think of both at their best is to think of Terry McDermott versus Tottenham, Eric Cantona vs Sunderland or Thiago Alcantara versus, well, United.
Right now that intensity and magic is missing.The once greatest game in world football will play out again on Sunday with the prize fighters far from their prime. The winner will merely accomplish a seat at the table rather than being crowned its head.
Will this fixture ever live up to its billing again? Right now, it feels like both clubs and English football have far bigger issues to address. Issues highlighted so mesmerically by PSG vs Bayern.
