Next Gen will take rivalry to new level
AS the Premier League title race turned into the final straight last season, both Pep Guardiola and Jurgen Klopp were on the same page.
City held a narrow lead at the top of the table, with Liverpool hot on their heels. Both arguably deserved to win the title, but only one would lift the trophy.
Guardiola and Klopp must have been sick of repeating themselves when insisting they had to assume their rival would win every game, so any slip-up would cost the title.
The pair could confidently say that because they know the other’s team better than anyone else. They’ve come face-to-face in four competitions for the past five years, and so little separates them. Now, though, there is a new factor in this modern rivalry: unpredictability.
Since Guardiola arrived at City in 2016, with Klopp already in place at Anfield, seven of the first nine meetings between the Blues and Liverpool ended in a victory for either team.
In the following eight meetings, there have been four draws as both squads and coaching teams have grown in quality and devised effective methods to stop the other.
Even the four wins for either side since 2019 have had extenuating circumstances. City’s
3-1 defeat at Anfield that year was at the height of their injury woes in the season Liverpool raced to the title, and the 4-0 win for the Blues at the
Etihad came with nothing to play for as Liverpool had already sealed their first Premier League title.
The following season, City’s 4-1 win at Anfield came behind closed doors and with a Liverpool injury crisis hampering Klopp’s selection. And last season’s FA Cup semi-final saw a full-strength Liverpool side ease to victory over a second-string City side who rested players to win the Premier League. This rivalry is at a point where there is almost nothing to separate the sides because they know each other so well. Now, however, this summer has introduced new factors. Liverpool’s signing of Diogo Jota gave City something to think about while Luis Diaz’s arrival in January added an extra
dynamic to last season’s meetings, and now Darwin Nunez will do the same.
City fans may breathe a sigh of relief to see Sadio Mane leave Anfield after six years, with a record of 10 goals scored against the Blues in 19 appearances since moving to England.
However, the departure might not be the advantage City could be drawn into thinking it is. After finally working out how to (just about) deal with the fearsome front-line of Mo Salah, Mane and Roberto Firmino, the Blues will face a new Liverpool trio of Nunez, Diaz and Salah when they play in the Community Shield next month.
But then the same goes for City, who have added two elite strikers having played two seasons without a recognised centre forward.
Erling Haaland should strike fear into Liverpool’s defence, and Julian Alvarez will hardly have Virgil Van Dijk and Joel Matip sleeping easily.
The Blues could still add more signings in the transfer market, while three key players are being linked with exits – Gabriel Jesus, Raheem Sterling and Bernardo Silva. If Liverpool have a new-look front line next season, City do too.
Of the players who featured in the 2-2 draw at the Etihad in April, there’s a chance four starters won’t be involved next time the teams meet, with at least three new forwards. When the sides line up in Leicester for the Community Shield, those three forwards could be making their competitive debuts.
For the last three years, defences have arguably decided the results of City v Liverpool games, with highquality stalemates the likely outcome when both sides are full strength.
Next season, that pattern will go out of the window, as this rivalry enters a new era with a younger generation coming to make a name for themselves.
Bring it on.