I don’t subscribe anymore but I’ve always thought his ‘praise’ of City and how they’ve achieved their success was to do with good recruitment and a manager who tends to get the best out of players more often that not, which is fair comment and not all that different to how we’ve went about it. We obviously haven’t spent as much, although I would be cautious about us suggesting we are worlds apart from City - it’s a difference that we can recognise but most outside observers would look at our very expensive squad of players and think we’re not necessarily the sizeable underdogs that we often like to make out.
Even if you do the bullshit false-equivalence thing of saying "City have spent money, so have Liverpool" (despite the clear fact that the net spends over the past 10 years, past 5 years or past 3 years are worlds apart), then how do you hold the idea that there's a similarity in how the two clubs' success has been earned?
We made our money, grew our huge fanbase and created our history over generations of good management, laudable principles and stories. City were a nothing side, got bought by a country, went to the top because of that. Its self-made millionaires vs lottery winners.
That's why - in my opinion - City in their current incarnation deserve zero respect, no matter how good their team is or how many things they win. Its all based on unearned (and if the rules were actually stuck to, illegal) financial doping - it's not sport to rise to the top based on that and not earn it through hard work and doing things the right way and within the rules. Why is this so difficult for people (including Liverpool fans apparently) to grasp?
