Liverpool's European Cup record is the one Sir Alex
Ferguson would most like to better with Manchester United.
Photograph: Tom Jenkins
English football may be about to make history. Or not, as the
case may be. In just over a week's time Manchester
United could be on the verge of becoming the first club
to win the English league for a fourth successive season and the
only one to win it 19 times. Of the two feats the latter would
surely be the most welcome for United since it would take them
ahead of Liverpool's
total of 18 titles, which was the unchallenged record until Sir
Alex Ferguson completed his second Premier League hat-trick last
season.
Such are Ferguson's feelings for all things Anfield and so
strong is the tribal rivalry between the followers of United and
Liverpool that a 19th championship would leave Old Trafford basking
in a triumphant afterglow until August even if Manchester
experiences one of its wetter summers. There is therefore a
delicious irony in the fact that Liverpool are the team best placed
this weekend to help or hinder Manchester United's ambitions,
either by beating Chelsea at home tomorrow or suffering their
second defeat of the season by Carlo Ancelotti's side. Even a draw
would do United a favour, always assuming they do not then drop
points at Sunderland.
Statistics apart, another triumph for Ferguson would be bound to
increase the feeling among Anfield fans that their club is being
left further behind. It is 20 years since Liverpool won their 18th
title and during this period Manchester United have topped the
Premier League 11 times. As things stand the chances of Liverpool
closing the gap appear remote. More than a few pundits fancied
Rafael Benítez's team this season after Liverpool finished
runners-up last time. How wrong can a rune be?
By now more than a few Liverpool punters will have come to the
conclusion that their team will not again be serious championship
contenders until the club's American owners, Tom and Jerry, have
sold up and Benítez, the note-taking technocrat, has been replaced
as manager by the arm-waving egotist, José Mourinho. Half a dozen
footballers of superior quality might also help. Steven Gerrard and
Fernando Torres were never going to carry the side for a whole nine
months.
Anfield supporters may take some comfort from remembering that
Manchester United fans were experiencing similar feelings of
frustration when Kenny Dalglish's side won Liverpool's most recent
league championship in 1990, John Barnes completing the task with a
penalty as Queens Park Rangers were beaten 2-1. It was Liverpool's
10th title in 15 seasons whereas United had not won the First
Division since 1967 and were about to finish 13th.
Rumours of discontent with the management of Ferguson, who had
been in charge since 1986, were rife and he might have gone the way
of Ron Atkinson, Dave Sexton and others who failed to recapture the
heights of the Matt Busby era had United not won the FA Cup that
season. At least Liverpool remain capable of winning other things
at home and abroad, yet the regular presence of the Premier League
trophy at Old Trafford still rankles.
It could be argued that Liverpool's profusion of championships
in the 60s, 70s and 80s had added merit because those were more
egalitarian football times, whereas Ferguson's United have owed
much to the concentration of wealth and talent among a handful of
clubs that resulted from the creation of the Premier League as a
breakaway competition in the early 90s. At various times the
Liverpool teams of Bill Shankly, Bob Paisley, Joe Fagan and
Dalglish faced serious competition not only from Busby's United,
Don Revie's Leeds, Manchester City and Aston Villa but also Derby,
Nottingham Forest, QPR, Ipswich, Watford and Southampton, clubs now
several football worlds away from a place among the Premier
League's elite. Ferguson, by contrast, can usually assume that his
principal rivals will be Chelsea, Arsenal and, if they can get
their act together, Liverpool, with Manchester City and Tottenham
the only plausible alternatives at present.
Should Manchester United break all records this time, further
upstaging Liverpool in the process, speculation concerning
Ferguson's retirement will doubtless continue apace. Meanwhile,
Fergie will probably deny he is going right up to the moment he
decides to go.
And there is still the small matter of overhauling Liverpool's
record of four European Cups plus a Champions League. At present
United trail 5-3 so Ferguson is going to need quite a bit of
stoppage time. Getting ahead of Anfield in the domestic league
would leave him satisfied but not sated.