6 hours ago
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Liverpool cannot play the underdog card when they arrive at Manchester City as the intense Premier League rivalry begins a new chapter
Three years ago, Liverpool were arguably two games away from being the first team in history to win the Quadruple.
Had Manchester City not produced an unbelievable comeback in the final 30 minutes of their final Premier League game with Aston Villa, Jurgen Klopp would have taken his side to the Champions League final with Real Madrid having won all three English trophies. City did, and Real did what Real do on a big European night, but it still felt like playing to a particular gallery when Klopp suggested five months later that Liverpool had no hope of matching City.
"You will not like the answer, and you all have the answer already. Nobody can compete with City in that," he said.
"You have the best team in the world and you put in the best striker [Erling Haaland] on the market. No matter what it costs, you just do it.
"I know City will not like it, nobody will like it, you've asked the question but you know the answer. What does Liverpool do? We cannot act like them. It is not possible."
Klopp needed devoted faithfuls for his brand of 'heavy metal' football and he took almost every chance to talk Liverpool up as underdogs against City: they couldn't spend like City did so they just had to rely on their unity and whatever was left from the Philippe Coutinho money. Sure enough, while it wasn't Klopp at the helm, Arne Slot walked into the squad the German had built and romped to the Premier League title last season without spending a penny.
But then Liverpool went and out-Citied City, breaking the British transfer record twice in the same summer in a £446m outlay that dwarfed anything the Blues have done under Guardiola. Having directly beaten City to the signing of the £116m Florian Wirtz, there is no way that the reigning champions can keep up the pretence that they are at a disadvantage.
That was always Klopp's conclusion too, that City being able to spend meant they had a big advantage. It's perfectly reasonable to think that, and yet Liverpool are half a billion pounds lighter this season yet don't look as good as the team that won the league.
In six months, Slot and the club's head of business Michael Edwards have shattered two myths that Klopp spent so long cultivating. They will arrive at the Etihad this weekend with the fewest amount of excuses since probably before Sheikh Mansour bought City in 2008.
Transition is the word that has been used by some to explain the spluttering start of Liverpool's expensively assembled squad, but the same could be said of City back in 2017 when they beat Klopp's side 5-0 at the Etihad a month after the season had started.
It could also be said of Guardiola's team now - despite Slot's bizarre attempts to suggest their XI for the League Cup game with Swansea last month was full of their best players. Ten new faces have arrived in 2025 alone for £350m in the biggest overhaul for eight years, and that will also give a very different feeling to this game and rivalry.
Seven of the starting XI from the last time City beat Liverpool back in April 2023 are now playing for different clubs, and just one started against Dortmund in midweek. The team that won the Treble went up in flames last year, and nobody knows quite how good the new one is emerging from those ashes.
That is partly what makes Sunday's clash so exciting: as Liverpool arrive determined to show that their title triumph last year was no flash in the pan, City are looking to show that their radical changes can spark a new era of dominance at the Etihad.
Of course, both may end up being bridesmaids in the title race if Arsenal continue to set a relentless pace. But as City and Liverpool come to terms with not being what they thought they were, this weekend will help make the reality clearer as to who has the brighter reality for the future.
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