Wait, what??? To clarify, I obviously mean "hope" in the same sense that a gulag internee from a Solzhenitsyn novel hopes to spend his day breaking stones with his forehead given the alternative is to be summarily sentenced to wrestle hungry polar bears with his hands tied behind his back. Hence, with the Premier League title seemingly destined for either Anfield or Abu Dhabi, the dilemma for Utd fans, with only a smidgen of hyperbole, is truly as stark as choosing between a severe concussion and well, wrestling a Stalinist polar bear.

Plainly, since the title of this blog has robbed it of any dramatic tension, Liverpool are the concussive option, albeit of a brain-shaking severity akin to playing an entire NFL season without a helmet. But still, I reckon that I could just about survive next year actually, finally, being their year. Man City on the other hand .....

Well, Man City remind me of the Katherine Ryan joke about how Cheryl Tweedy - Cole - Payne - Tweedy is so beautiful that it makes you forget that she'd happily glass you. With that in mind you can appreciate that while on the surface Man City may be all push-up bras, exposed midriffs, and gyrating hips, if you strip away the layers to reveal the flabby underbelly all you are left with is a thuggish, ASBO graduate, with a switchblade hidden down her pants.

Moreover, I don't care if, like the love child of Ornette Coleman and Pep Guardiola, the bewilderingly sophisticated syncopation of City's football manages to fuse free jazz with tiki taka and to overhaul the senses with a visual kind of music. Nope, because through this cracked prism of exaltation, what we are seeing is the broken vision of football posing as redemption.

Indeed, like some sort of metaphysical mindf**k, you could say that round Etihad way football is posing as football or even, going one step further into the Cartesian morass, say that Man City are posing as Man City. Regardless of what any of this actually means, it's definitely disconcerting, as to me it feels a bit like the club is wearing a mask of it's own likeness; somewhat as if they are pursuing a Kafkaesque metamorphosis where a reckless yet perfect anonymity emerges from the act of being themselves.

With everything hidden in plain sight, there's nothing left to trust. But, as Man City's hierarchy are all too aware, you don't need to trust trophies, you just have to count them. Success in being at once the blindfold, the opiate, and the sword is the distraction, the addiction, and the threat, at the heart of a faustian pact, between the club and its fans.

Personally, I can't help but wonder whether success is a high enough price for a club's soul. Indeed, It would seem to me that there can be no long term upside to a transaction, wherein culture and tradition are effectively melted down and moulded into silverware. Surely, under such circumstances Midas' fate becomes the club's own. Unfortunately, such wilful prostration at the altar of immediate reward is unlikely to be a trait unique to Man City. Earlier this year, when speculation surrounding a potential Saudi-led takeover of Man Utd was the latest bullshitty grist to the rumour mill, the gossip-mongers' reports included jubilant reactions from Utd fans.

While, how representative such views truly were is anyone's guess, I fear, with the City precedent in mind, that they may at least have served as a weathervane broadly indicating the direction of fan sentiment. But to me, and I'm sure many others, such a prospect would be nothing short of nightmarish. Indeed, my initial reaction to the news was to imagine Ed Woodward gleefully announcing Lockheed Martin as Utd's official arms supplier, while showcasing a fleet of Apache helicopters specifically modified to patrol the skies for planes flying banners. Although, this is plainly a leap of the imagination, nevertheless we should be forewarned that if the encroachment of politics into football is allowed to continue unfettered what really is there to stop us from entering the dystopia of a brave new world?

Liverpool, in being the antithesis to City, provide an antidote to this Huxleyan virus; even if it is for no other reason than they are a football club whose primary focus remains football. Sure, you have to overlook the cloying reverence with which the marketing men portray the club as something approaching a religion. And sure, the fact that Shankly-ite socialism has given way to baseball style capitalism has tarnished the mythology of collectivism somewhat. But still, Liverpool remain the club that, post Hillsborough, stood against the serried ranks of the establishment to support their fans' fight for justice, and for that they are special.

Indeed, such solidarity matches my ideal of football as a sacred symbiosis between fans and club. Granted, holding such a quixotic viewpoint may leave me open to the accusation of surrendering to naive sentimentalism, but then are personal ideals supposed to be realistic? Either way, does anyone really think that, on a purely human level, Man City as an institution give two hoots about their fanbase?

Though City are roundly touted as the archetype of what a modern club should be, I believe theirs to be a model that reduces some of the most loyal fans in England to, at best, seat filling revenue raisers or, at worst, inadvertent apologists for an unsavoury regime. Admittedly, in terms of the seat filling charge, few clubs are exactly paragons of virtue, but City's debasement of the fan/club relationship goes way beyond in terms of its perniciousness, and in my view forfeits the sanctity of football's most fundamental bond. I hope that Liverpool win the league to demonstrate that the City model is not unassailable, that there is an alternative, which can deliver success without being solely defined by it.

Of course, that being said, I still hope that Kloop perseveres with his strategy of self-sabotage in the Champions League since this olive branch doesn't reach as far as hoping they secure a 6th European Cup.