On New Years Day 2021, Manchester United joined Liverpool at the top of the Premier League, the two footballing giants separated only by goal difference. As English football begins another year, the longest running rivalry in the top division shows no sign of dissipating. I've been winding up my United supporting mates over the last few months that the Red Devils are now at the Roy Evans stage, if you use Liverpools thirty year wait to win the league as a measuring stick. The Reds of Merseyside brought in former captain and very successful Glasgow Rangers manager, Graeme Souness to replace the exhausted Kenny Dalglish. Unfortunately, he wasn't able to replicate what he achieved in Scotland and the downfall of the most successful side in English football began just as Alex Ferguson found his mojo down the East Lancs Road. By the time Sir Alex retired in 2013, he'd fulfilled his prophecy of knocking Liverpool off our perch, winning 13 of the 21 Premier Leagues he competed in and leaving United with an overall haul of 20 League titles and 3 European Cups as opposed to Liverpools 18 and 5. Between Dalglish stepping down at Liverpool and Fergie getting his gold watch at Old Trafford, Liverpool won an FA Cup in 92, League Cup in 95, FA Cup, League Cup and UEFA Cup treble in 2001, League Cup in 2003, Champions League in 2005, FA Cup in 2006 and League Cup in 2012. We also finished as League runners up in 2002 and 2009. Less successful clubs scoff at Liverpool fans complaining about the lack of major trophies won while United secured the league in 93 and 94, 96 and 97, 99, 2000 and 2001, 2003, 2007, 2008, 2009 (Liverpool runners up), 2011 and 2013 as well as becoming Champions of Europe in 1999 (a year they won a treble) and 2008. These are the trophies Liverpool and United fans care about the most. While Shankly, Paisley, Fagan and Dalglish were leading the Anfield club to Championships and European Cups in the 70's and 80's, United relied on the FA Cup. The old trophy maintained their standing as the most supported club in Britain and Ireland alongside the all conquering reds from 30 miles up the road. Indeed, Uniteds FA Cup victory in 1990 is heralded as the moment Fergusons fortunes changed at MUFC. These days the Football Association Cup is held with about as much regard as the League Cup because the clubs competing in the Champions League often see it as an opportunity to rest their stars though more often than not the big clubs still go on to win it. Top 4 is far more lucrative to any club than this piece of historic silverware. The fans still want to win trophies. Any trophy. You only have to listen to Everton fans being baited for not winning a trophy since beating Man United at Wembley in 1995. If you haven't won anything for a long time, a League Cup or FA Cup is a very welcome end to a trophy-less run but the owners of the top football clubs, who have no sentiment for the romance of the cups, want only to win the league or qualify for Champions League and then win it too. In his second spell at Liverpool, King Kenny won the League Cup, Liverpools first trophy in 6 years and finished runner up to Chelsea in the FA Cup but were a long way off the top 4. It cost him his job. Don't get me wrong, there's still a huge appetite for doubles and trebles involving domestic cups but they only really matter when they're won along with the two major trophies - Premier League and Champions League or qualifying for the latter . Such was the dominance of United during Fergie Time, at the start of each season, one of my football managers, a huge United fan, took a bet off anyone brave enough to take it that United would win the league over any other team. It's true to say that during this time when Liverpool were often nowhere near competing with their great rivals, anyone but United winning the league would be celebrated. I remember very well dancing around my kitchen when City pipped them in 2012. They'd already moved to 19, one more than us. That was enough. Once they started winning, my friends who support United were unbearable but while they surpassed us and kept us down for the best part of 3 decades, the fear loomed in them that we would eventually return to the summit. Jurgen Klopp accelerated the fears, reaching League Cup, Europa League and Champions League finals in his first 3 seasons in charge. It was only a matter of time.
Before United went without a league title for 26 years and Liverpool without one for 30 years. There was a period when one team won it one year and the other the next. The red side of Liverpool first won the league in 1901 and again in 1906, the red side of Manchester topping the table for the first time at the end of the 1908 season and again in 1911. After World War 1, Liverpool won back to back titles in 1922 and 23 but didn't win it again until 1947 when United were runners up. United, under former Liverpool captain Matt Busby, took second place in 4 of the 5 years before finally winning their 3rd league title in 1952. The era of the Busby Babes followed with United equalling Liverpools five league championships via back to back wins in 56 and 57. The Munich Air Disaster in 1958 denied Manchester United the chance to totally dominate English football for many years but Busby rebuilt his team just as Bill Shankly was transforming the fortunes of his old club. Between 1964 and 1967, Liverpool and United alternated as First Divison Champions, going toe to toe for 4 years, an era in which they were both successful. At the end of this period, the two clubs were on seven titles each. Not only that but United won the Cup in 63 and Liverpool won it for the first time in 1965. This was the Liverpool team of Yeats, Callaghan and Hunt when winning the FA Cup was on par with winning the league. Uniteds last league success until the 90's earned them a place in the 1967-68 European Cup and they went on to become the first English team to lift old big ears with a team starring Charlton, Best and Law but they didn't win another trophy under Sir Matt, who retired in 1969. From 1973, Liverpool won 11 of the next 18 First Division titles. United struggled to replace Busby and were relegated in 1974 following years of changing managers. The late Tommy Docherty suffered the ignominy of taking the mighty United down to Division 2 but returned them to Division 1 at the first attempt. United still had the European Cup over Liverpool until the reds won it in 1977 and again in 78, 81 and 84. The Old Trafford club won FA Cups in 77, 83, 85 and 90 as well as achieving European glory with the Cup Winners Cup in 1991 and the League Cup in 92. Ferguson delivered the one they all wanted, winning the inaugural Premier League which replaced the First Division in 92-93, Cantona was the final piece of the jigsaw. Fergie's Fledglings hatched in 95-96 and went on to win doubles with Cantona, trebles and Champions Leagues without the enigmatic Frenchman. United fans thought it would never end. They'd learned the lessons from Busby and from Liverpool who made a mess of replacing Dalglish in 1991.
Nowadays it's easier for two clubs from the same country to be successful at the same time because 4 or 5 clubs can compete in the Champions League. It's interesting that Liverpools triumph in 2005 came during the period when United went their longest without winning the league as Fergie was building the fourth great side of his tenure (Rooney, Ronaldo and Tevez). Having not won it for 3 years, he won the next 3 to go level with Liverpool on 18 then overtook us in 2011 and went further ahead in 2013. David Moyes had done a great job with a modest budget at Everton and was SAF's choice to replace him. The Scot was given an extraordinarily long contract as a show of faith and patience. He was gone within 9 months as Liverpool and City fought for the title, club legend Ryan Giggs, who was still playing, brought in to replace him in the interim. Plan A had failed, Plan B was Louis Van Gaal who won the FA Cup before being replaced with Plan C, Jose Mourinho who won a League Cup and the Europa League but the once all conquering Portuguese manager wasn't the force of old and without Premier League or Champions League titles all that was left was anti football. Following a defeat at Anfield in December 2018, Mourinho was sacked. Jurgen Klopp's Liverpool went on to conquer all of Europe, win number 6 and set a record points total for finishing runners up in the Premier League. United went in another direction again, Ole Gunnar Solksjaer, the club hero who scored the dramatic winner in the 1999 Champions League Final was brought in on a temporary contract initially but his appointment caused such a positive bounce in the teams fortunes for the rest of the 18/19 season, he was soon given a permanent deal. There have been a lot of ups and downs for Solksjaer and his players in the last 2 years. Several times he has looked like he was moments away from being fired as the shadow of the out of work Mauricio Pochettino hung over each bad result suffered but he has recovered remarkably each time. The pressure is on the red side of Manchester with Liverpool winning number 19 and looking to continue to dominate. Liverpool and United are now the best supported clubs in the entire world with over a billion fans between them. According to Wikipedia, United lead in total trophies won by 66 to 64. The two clubs spur each other on to be as successful as the other. Sometimes this oversteps the mark and there is plenty of poison between the rival fans over tragedies like Munich, Heysel and Hillsborough. Most recently, a group stage exit from this seasons Champions League seemed like the end for the United manager as they also found themselves 9 points behind league leaders Liverpool. Since then, Liverpool have dropped points while United have hit form and Pochettino has been hired by PSG. Both teams sit on the same points at the top of the league. So how will it end? Will this be the start of an era of both teams being successful at the same time again? one alternating between winning the league and the other winning the Champions League for the next few years? Or is this merely the death knell for the OGS reign at Old Trafford and the drought will continue? Roy Evans replaced Graeme Souness as Liverpool returned to the tried and trusted Boot Room method of selecting its' next manager but despite some promise and one almost serious title challenge in 1997, Evans fared no better and was replaced by Gerard Houllier, a pragmatic Frenchman with a Liverpool history. History has a habit of repeating itself so could Laurent Blanc be the next United manager and is Steven Gerrard destined to come down from Rangers and replace Klopp? Maybe we've seen what's happening now at Old Trafford occur at Liverpool more recently when Brendan Rodgers took the reds to within touching distance of ending what was then a 24 year wait to win the league. Many Liverpool fans never forgave him for taking us so close but not getting the job done. By the end of this season we will know if Solksjaer is more Busby than Evans. Whatever happens this season, it is win or bust for Ole.
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