Why Liverpool vs Manchester United Still Reigns as Football’s Fiercest Rivalry
From Founding Feuds to Future Frontlines: The Past, Present and Future of English Football's Biggest Match
They say time erodes everything. But there are some fixtures where memory sharpens, not fades. Liverpool versus Manchester United is one of them. It does not matter where either side sits in the table or who is carrying injuries or form. This is still the fixture that makes palms sweat and pulses rise. It has not lost its edge. It never will.
On Sunday, Anfield will host the 100th clash between these two at our ground. United have not won here since Rooney stole it in 2016, and even that came under the shadow of decline. This time, they arrive under Rúben Amorim with fresh faces like Sesko and Mbeumo but still without the conviction that used to define them. Meanwhile, Arne Slot’s Liverpool are wounded, winless in three, and missing Alisson, but that might just make them more dangerous.
What follows in this blog is not a match preview. It is something deeper. It is about what this rivalry has been, what it still is, and why it continues to cut through every modern distraction in football. From city rivalry to global obsession, from Ferguson’s perch to Klopp’s defiance and beyond, this is an unfiltered view of what makes Liverpool vs United still the only fixture that truly matters.
Why Liverpool vs Manchester United Still Sets Football’s Pulse Racing
There are fixtures in football that carry consequence and then there are fixtures that carry meaning. The kind that hit you in the gut before a ball is kicked, that raise the temperature in the room the moment they are mentioned. For Liverpool supporters, no match holds more weight than the one against Manchester United. Not City, not Everton, not anyone. You feel it in your blood. The fixture may no longer decide titles every year, but it still defines who we are.
This Sunday, the reds of Liverpool and Manchester will clash once again. And whatever else is going on in the league or in the world, everything else will have to wait.
History That Never Leaves Us
The reasons stretch further back than most supporters alive today. This thing has roots. The rivalry between Liverpool and Manchester did not start on the pitch, it started with the building of a canal. When Manchester opened its own shipping route to the sea and bypassed Liverpool’s docks, it did more than cut off a trade route. It opened a wound between two cities whose pride still swells and spills into everything, football most of all.
When the clubs began to accumulate success, the bitterness hardened. Liverpool dominated through the 70s and 80s, Manchester United answered through the 90s and beyond. The question of who truly owns English football’s legacy is one that still burns and will likely never be answered cleanly. What matters is that both believe it belongs to them.
To some, this is ancient history. To us, it is unfinished business.
Moments That Burn Into Memory
I have seen us dismantle them 5-0 at Old Trafford. I have seen us obliterate them 7-0 at Anfield in what felt like an out-of-body experience, where everything clicked and the past three decades of power shifts and Ferguson and smug grins came roaring back to be repaid in full. But I’ve also seen them nick results they didn’t deserve. I’ve seen us overthink it, overcommit, overreact to the noise around the game.
This rivalry has never been about form. It ignores the table. It shrugs at logic. When we were the dominant side in recent years, they still managed to take points off us. They scraped draws, they dug deep for wins, they clung to the moment. And when they were dominant for decades under Ferguson, we did the same. We knew we were second best, but we never let them forget we were there.
What that shows you is not balance, but obsession. It shows you that neither of us can look at a fixture list without circling this one first. Every time.
More Than A Game, Still
This rivalry matters because it hasn’t been diluted. In a Premier League era where fanbases become content markets and matchdays resemble sponsored events, this fixture remains volatile, intense, uncomfortable. It is still tribal. And thank God it is.
I don’t want politeness when we go to Old Trafford. I want that jolt in the chest when you hear 70,000 sing back at you. I want our fans to roar “Liverpool” from the rafters and for theirs to hate it with every fibre they’ve got. That is what football was built on. Emotion, defiance, identity.
It is not nostalgia. It is presence. I still feel that same anxiety in my stomach before kick-off. I still feel that small tremor in my voice when I try to predict how it’ll go. No other match does that. Not City, who we’ve fought toe-to-toe for titles. Not Chelsea or Arsenal, even in their best years. Only United.
Even when City were chasing everything in 2022, both clubs battling across every competition, it didn’t quite stir the same heat. It lacked the venom. There was respect, but not electricity. United bring electricity.
It’s In The Bone, Not Just The Brain
Ask any Liverpool supporter old enough to know. When the fixtures come out, you look for United first. You don’t even realise you’ve done it. The dates lock into your brain before you check who we’ve got on Boxing Day or the final weekend. That’s how deep this rivalry runs.
Even now, with us clearly in a stronger place and them scrapping to rebuild some kind of identity, I don’t take them lightly. I’ve seen too much. I’ve lived through too much. United’s worst is still capable of spoiling our best. That’s what they live for. And if we’re honest, we’ve done the same.
This game is not a derby in the geographical sense. But it’s the only game that feels like one in your chest.
So yes, this Sunday matters. It matters more than most. Slot might be building something new, something exciting, but it’s forged in the shadow of this rivalry. Every title we win, every era we begin, still has to reckon with them. When Klopp came in, it took him a while to crack United. Once he did, the results were glorious. But they never gave up. They never made it easy. They were still there, clawing, grinning, trying to get under the skin.
That tells you something. Not just about them, but about what this fixture does. It resets everything. It reminds us who we are. And more importantly, who we are not.
Let others pretend it’s just another game. For Liverpool supporters like me, this one still carries weight. It still demands everything. It still matters. Always will.
How a Shipping War Created Football’s Fiercest Rivalry
Before the tackles flew, before the chants echoed across the terraces, before the scoreboard ever tilted red or otherwise, the rivalry between Liverpool and Manchester had already begun. This was not born on a pitch. It was born in grit, in smoke, in trade and toil. The kind of rivalry that predates football itself, shaped not by goals but by industry, geography and resentment that seeped into everyday life.
What we see now when Liverpool face Manchester United is just the most visible symptom of something older and deeper. The clubs inherited a fight that the cities had already been having for generations.