In footballing terms, the festive period has seen the EPL accelerate at a frightening pace towards its ultimate conclusion. We don't do winter breaks over here and instead, Christmas is a time for merriment, overeating and live sports action but while the decorations have come down and new diets have been embarked upon, the football still remains.
I remember looking at the fixture list some time back in October as much as anything in trying to put together a schedule for the live blogs and it seemed apparent then that we'd have a good idea about which direction the title was headed come early January. City's win over rivals Liverpool has kept it a 2 horse race and even prior to our defeat by United this weekend I had been saying that Spurs chances of winning the league were about on par with me finding a one ended stick!
So given that my team and probably most peoples' teams aren't going to win the league this year, it got me thinking who would I prefer to win it, Citeh or the Bin Dippers? Here's a list of things to consider when deciding which offers the lesser of 2 evils.
Let me know in the comments section who you'd prefer to win and why?
Liverpool have never won the Premier League
18 League titles but not one of them in the Premier League era. Liverpool haven't won a title since 1990, 28 years of hurt and counting for the men in red and their die-hard fans. Surely, it's time to give them something to cheer about? I mean their great rivals Manchester United have won the thing 13 times! 13-0, even Man City stopped at 9 goals in their recent route of Burton Albion.
Perhaps the amount of sympathy you have for Liverpool's plight over the last few decades is dependant upon your age. I was talking to my dad (A Bristol City supporter) about Liverpool and he stated how much he dislikes them based largely upon the success that they had during the 1970s and 80s. Back then they were the Manchester United of the 1990s and early 20th century, a group of arrogant, egotistical but ultimately talented players who'd won it all. We don't like winners in this country, in fact, we take great pleasure in cutting them down to size. I'm not sure if that's the same around the world or it just represents one of the many weird aspects of the British psyche.
I guess in that sense then, Man City with their 3 wins in the last 7 seasons are the team and fans that might have been getting a bit big for their boots. However, certainly from a fans perspective, I can honestly say that I don't know any Man City supporters! You might say that this is because I don't live in the North England but as any Brit will tell you the closer you get to Southampton (just down the road from me) the more likely you are to bump into a Man United fan. Do City not have the same draw that United did? Has their success not been sustained for long enough to encourage fans to abandon their traditional regional loyalties? Maybe they are just supported by a bunch of 8 to 10-year-olds, I don't know but what I do know is that Liverpool fans are coming out of the woodwork at a frightening rate. I have to work with 3 of them (Phil, Jon and Writingamigo) on the Live Blogs, can you imagine how unbearable they are going to be if Liverpool finally break their hoodoo?
Money, it's a gas ....
Grab that cash with both hands and make a stash. New car, caviar, four star daydream. Think I'll buy me a football team Pink Floyd, Money
The Premier League is awash with Billionaire owners from all parts of the world but you'd be hard-pressed to argue that City's owner Sheikh Mansour isn't the biggest fish in this particular murky pond. He has spent a total of £1.5 billion on transfers since his arrival which is more than any club in the Premier League during that same time period. The common consensus then is that they've brought their way to success and as such those league titles mean less than they would to all those smaller clubs with no money who have had to rely on great coaching and the development of youth players to win them leagues. You know which side, I mean! Umm..... yeah that team that was a real rags to riches story. Umm ....... Chelsea? No, right those teams don't exist anymore in the Premier League or if they do they don't win anything. I know people will argue that Leicester did it but they were still owned by a billionaire businessman who invested a large chunk of cash into the club. Money talks and given that City have the most they are now positively shouting above the others.
For their part, Liverpool have also splashed the cash, particularly in the last few transfer windows as the below graphic shows. At the same time, they have brought a few players through their youth system and an into the first team and that in general tends to endear neutrals to a side because it is seen as "the right thing to do". Do the likes of Trent Alexander-Arnold and Joe Gomez make Liverpool a more likeable or even more worthy winner of the league?
Style of play and manager
It'd be fair to say that both sides play the game in an attractive manner. City broke the record for most goals in an EPL season last year (102) and they might need to get close to that again in order to overturn Liverpool at the top of the league this season. By his own definition, Jurgen Klopp likes his sides to play "heavy metal football" although their performance in January so far have been a little more Coldplay than Rage Against the Machine.
Then you have to take into consideration the differences in style of the managers themselves. Both of them seem like fairly likeable chaps and they certainly represent the younger more media savvy coaches we have seen in recent years. My guess is that in many ways they will both have secretly have liked the fact that Jose Mourinho courted such a media circus every time United played. The newspapers have to portray someone as the villain and Jose seemed more than willing to play up to the role. His Chelsea sides while efficient lacked the same cutting edge that these 2 teams have with Chelsea able to win the title by scoring almost a goal a game less than City managed last season - not so endearing to the neutral football supporter!
If Pep were a car he'd probably be an Audi of some description all sleek lines and precision engineering. I often find myself wondering whether he's one of those wealthy guys who has a brand new outfit picked out for every day and if that is the case what does he do with the clothes after he's worn them once? Is there a homeless shelter in Manchester with the best-dressed tramps in the world?
As for Klopp, I guess he'd be more of an American model, something with some harder edges but definitely some muscle under the bonnet that represents his seemingly boundless energy. Maybe an old Dodge Charger would be an adept comparison especially since the car almost looks like it's wearing horn-rimmed glasses! Klopp is probably the kind of guy that fans, in general, can connect with more. He wears his heart on his sleeve and is one of those managers that it'd probably be worth just keeping a camera on for the full 90mins in order to watch his little idiosyncrasies unfold.
My choice
If I have to choose one of these 2 to win the league I would probably plump for Liverpool on the basis that the club, their ethos and overall style of play are somewhat more favourable to that of City. However, as happy as I will be for Liverpool fans if they do manage to break their EPL duck I would really appreciate it if they could just not talk about it beyond let's say the end of May. Equally having my backing has probably ended any hopes of the reds securing that title, after all I'm a Spurs fan and we don't win anything!
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