Relations between Klopp and Guardiola and historical rivalries mean this fixture is a long way from the Battle of the Buffet
Crunch time arrives in the Premier League at the weekend. It is only necessary to glance at the league table now or last season to see why games between Liverpool and Manchester City are important in terms of the title race. The managers have had a nibble at each other over diving and tactical fouling in the buildup and few attending Anfield on Sunday will doubt that one side or the other will end up champions, yet for a variety of reasons there seems a reluctance to accept this fixture as the biggest in English football.
Perhaps the most obvious one is that it is not yet the biggest rivalry in English football. When it was suggested to Jürgen Klopp last season that the City game might soon assume the significance of Liverpool’s ancient battle for supremacy with Manchester United, with all its perch-clearing braggadocio and title hauls running into double figures, even a German knew England well enough to dismiss the notion as “bollocks”.
Related: ‘I will not change’: Liverpool’s Sadio Mané unrepentant about ‘diving’
Continue reading...