It beggared belief Jose Mourinho was asked if ‘trophies matter’ on the eve of the last Liverpool-United game in December. Mourinho was prone to offering withering replies and laughter would have been the best medicine for that query.
There is not enough room in Private Eye’s Pseuds Corner to accommodate the hipsters and niche naysayers who argue some trophies are unimportant.
A punter recently suggested United’s Europa League triumph was ‘insignificant’. They could not have been in Manchester city centre that week to visit the field of bouquets at St Ann’s Square. United’s victory was uplifting for the city and completed the set. “We’ve won it all,” as their raucous away followers sing.
United host Liverpool this weekend hours before City and Chelsea vie for the first major cup of the campaign and the topical question is ‘What is the bigger game?’
The League Cup should be valued more by the potless coaches; Sir Alex Ferguson, Jose Mourinho and Pep Guardiola have used it as a springboard for greater success. Tottenham have two League Cups to show for their efforts in the last quarter of a century and the 2008 success was enriched by the 5-1 shellacking of Arsenal and final comeback against Chelsea
Only five sides (Leicester, Blackburn, Middlesbrough, Birmingham and Swansea) have hoisted the three-handled trophy outside what is now known as The Big Six this century and eight finals have been contested between them. Sunday marks the ninth.
Should City overcome Chelsea they will have retained a trophy for the first time in their 139-year history. It is not a coincidence those who churlishly deride the League Cup also champion wage bills, as though record revenues or salary budgeting should be chiselled onto the boardroom honours’ board.
Though it is a contradiction, United versus Liverpool is the bigger match. It is an unrivalled enmity in English football with a febrile atmosphere intensified by geography, the Industrial Revolution, music and more.
Phil Chisnall remains the last player to have transferred between the clubs in 1964 and United have not signed a Liverpool player since Allenby Chilton in 1938. Gabriel Heinze took United to a Premier League tribunal in an attempt to force through a move to Liverpool in 2007 and failed.