This article isn’t even about this:
Liverpool - 68 trophies
Manchester United - 67 trophies
Arsenal - 48 trophies
Chelsea - 34 trophies
No. This article is about the current state of affairs, the cleanness of clubs (financial doping), the honesty of owners, and the attitude towards winning and entertaining, versus overspending and entertaining debts.
Right now, Liverpool FC is special; if anything, increasingly unique.
This can be seen by contrast with all the other major clubs, who all have some kind of shadow hanging over them; some asterisks here or there.
Some Liverpool fans may not like FSG, but the club is run as a self-sustaining model, and the past six years have eclipsed what even I, at my most optimistic and defensive about Jürgen Klopp during the first two years (when things had yet to kick into overdrive), could have imagined.
Liverpool never win transfer windows; but the club has won every single trophy these past few years.
To show how great Liverpool FC is, let's look at the rivals; without necessarily doing so to belittle them, or to suggest that they don't count. (Before bringing home the stark contrasts.)
• Man City. Lots of asterisks; 115 or so. Their XI (ignoring any potential illegal payments) consistently costs about 30% more than Liverpool’s, yet have often only beaten the Reds to the title by a point or two. A once great, self-deprecating fanbase turned into humourless Abu Dhabi sportwashing defenders. The club now seems to many like the Lance Armstrong of football. Will their expensive lawyers get them off the charges?
• Man United. Owners who, unlike Liverpool's, take money out of the club. Squad still fairly full of expensive duds who don't play (Harry Maguire, £92.5m after inflation) or don’t play well (Anthony Martial, £152.7m) and ‘dickheads’ who don't train properly (Jadon Sancho, £80.3m); and dickheads who’ve allegedly done far worse (and who tainted the club’s reputation). Talented manager but, as yet, not even close to the top tier of Jürgen Klopp and Pep Guardiola. Not run by sportswashers, but run by rinsers.
• Everton (included as local rivals). Won several transfer windows to the point where they ended up winning lots of trophies scrabbling around for free transfers for the past two years and aiming to escape the bottom three. The ultimate example of brash, mad-spending owners who jeopardise the health of the club (often while fans rejoice, cock-strut, and peacock, before the chickens come home to roost). A cautionary tale, for those who weren't interested in or even aware of football 20 years ago, when Leeds spent big and blew-out bigger. (Those who do not pay attention to history are doomed to repeat its failures.) Current status: perennial relegation battlers, one point from four games. The only two teams below them have a game in hand.
• Newcastle. Tainted by the sickening Saudi sportswashing that slicks across the world, and lost three of four games already (one of which was at home when 1-0 up against 10-man Liverpool). Upper-mid-level manager who did well last season with low expectations and a pot of gold, but now things are ramping up, and there’s European football to juggle and to sap energy. Eddie Howe has done a good job, but limitations could end up being exposed. Historically passionate, humorous fanbase, but like City's, now compromised by greed for success. Also, very unlikely that the Saudi league will come after (or seek to unsettle) their best players, just those they want to sell; which can further corrupt the Premier League.
• Chelsea. Bloody hell, where do you start? 🤯
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