Why do the media keep claiming Liverpool are on par with City?

Liverpool generally always get great press. They have a lot of ex-players in the media which helps plus I'm sure the club dishes a bunch of pro-Liverpool propaganda to regurgitate coupled with the fact they are "lovable losers" who've not won the league in almost 30 years so it's a "story" if they are in the hunt.

They aren't as good as Chelsea currently let alone City but then again Chelsea never gets the press Liverpool get even when they are on top.
 
City are just miles ahead of the pack unfortunately.
 
There are so many ex Liverpool players involved in the media. From Sourness, Jamie Redknapp, Steve Mc Mannaman, Carragher, Michael Owen, Phil Thompson, Ronnie Whelan, Stan Collymore, Stevie Nicholl, Ray Houghton, Mac Ateer, Hamann ect.. Never mind articles from Aldridge and others. That covers so much of the mainstream media, it's not like one or two is it. They are always going to push support and there agenda to an extent, some more biased than others. They are always going to praise and keep the feel good factor going, always a dig here and there at rivals at the right time. So many involved it's not hard to find out why it drives rival fans mad. I don't want to watch coverage with Souness and Redknapp as pundits in for a united game. It's a failure by sky, bt, Rte, bein sports ect.

They are always going to build up a title race. My issue is that you would think we are half way through some dynasty with Liverpool. They are playing food stuff but have won feck all in years. I think many fans are turning to fan channels because the analysis has become tame. You get great tactical analysis on Monday night football now and again, then insight from the bt show after the Saturday evening kickoff.

Back on topic, it's boring for them to suggest that city will breeze this league. They will call it a race as long as they can to keep viewer's gripped. They live in hope that Liverpool can do it this year.
 
The points say atm they arent far off. Its a title race until someone pulls away. They are keeping pace as it stands. Sure City will likely pull away but it hasn't happened yet.
 
After their champions league loss tonight, I love how the bbc match report say “Liverpool clearly had the stuffing knocked out of them with their draw with Aresenal at the weekend”

As if they’d say that if it were United. There’d be no mention, even if we played Barca..
 
City are the only top team and it is obvious unless you listen to the media.

RooneyLegend said:
The points say atm they arent far off. Its a title race until someone pulls away. They are keeping pace as it stands. Sure City will likely pull away but it hasn't happened yet.
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That’s because only 10 games have been played.
 
Rozay said:
The 5-0 defeat was following a ridiculous red card to Sadio Mané when Liverpool were very much the better side, and despite winning 4-3 at Anfield, they were hardly ‘hanging on’ in that game. City at best added some respectability with consolation late goals.

I appreciate Liverpool didn’t deliver last season, but football is to be watched Not read, and it was evident that they had the makings of a side who could take the next step.

This season, they have been right up there with City, and like them, are unbeaten in the League so far.
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Having a man sent off at 1-0 does not forgive a 5-0 defeat. It also wasn't a "ridiculous" red card. Mane had his studs up at head height on the keeper. Not always given, but hardly ridiculous.

As for the 4-3 win, how were they not hanging on by the end? City made it 4-3 with 4 minutes of added time left and Liverpool had to sit very deep and defend the lead. You're telling me that football is a game to be watched but it appears very much like you didn't even watch this game. It was actually a fairly close game, with the scoreline at 4-1 flattering Liverpool. A clinical nine minute spell saw Liverpool score three goals to make it 4-1, but City dominated possession throughout and managed a decent number of chances themselves.

Noted that you didn't mention the CL games and the somewhat dodgy officiating going on there.

How was it evident that Liverpool had the makings of a side ready for the next step? They secured CL qualification by scraping 4th on the final day of the season, bombed out of both domestic cups in the early stages. Putting all of your eggs in the basket of one cup run doesn't show anything about anyone, particularly when you're soundly beaten in the final.

Just to repeat myself, Liverpool, despite being unbeaten, are clearly not on a par with City, even in the league. Liverpool have scraped by a number of teams, with half of their wins being by one goal, City have won by three or more in over half of their nine wins. Last season, Liverpool, despite their apparently ruthless attacking football, had a goal difference of just six goals better than boring, defensive United, finishing six points behind them, and finished 25 points and 33 goals off City.

They categorically did not show themselves ready to make the next step, and the matches that have sparked the media hype have, somewhat ironically given your line of argument, been judged on the final result rather than the actual events that transpired. Football is to be watched, not read, after all.
 
Because it's full of ex Liverpool players that surley want to see Liverpool dominate English football again. It's the same media that was all over our team after the meaningless losses in the pre season.
 
They just want a title race to sell, that's all. Liverpool are a bigger name than Chelsea. Plus, they've not won it in ages. They just want a story really. There hasn't been a close title race in years so I can see why they're doing it. I can't see Liverpool being within 10 points of City by May though. They are a good side, without oil money infesting football they'd have a very good chance of winning the title. City have essentially bought an all star team though, it's very difficult for anybody to compete with that. Have you ever known any other team in history spend over £100m on fullbacks in 1 window, it's crazy.
 
Schmeichel's Cartwheel said:
They just want a title race to sell, that's all. Liverpool are a bigger name than Chelsea. Plus, they've not won it in ages. They just want a story really. There hasn't been a close title race in years so I can see why they're doing it. I can't see Liverpool being within 10 points of City by May though.
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It's the ex-Liverpool players in the media who all got giddy after they ended City's unbeaten run and knocked them out of the CL last season.

Chelsea have shown more than Liverpool this season, and are actually unbeaten since the Community Shield, with a record of W13 D3 L0 across all competitions. They're also not just scraping by teams in the league, which Liverpool are doing. If they just wanted to build up a title race with a bit of narrative, then Chelsea recovering from last season's disappointments makes just as much, if not more sense than Liverpool, especially as Chelsea have won something more recently than a League Cup over six years ago.
 
adexkola said:
It’s you being a United fan.

Until the Arsenal game they were neck to neck with City in the title race. With United falling as low as 10th place.

City are the favorites but Liverpool are up there. It’s not media bias.
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This.
 
Alex99 said:
It's the ex-Liverpool players in the media who all got giddy after they ended City's unbeaten run and knocked them out of the CL last season.

Chelsea have shown more than Liverpool this season, and are actually unbeaten since the Community Shield, with a record of W13 D3 L0 across all competitions. They're also not just scraping by teams in the league, which Liverpool are doing. If they just wanted to build up a title race with a bit of narrative, then Chelsea recovering from last season's disappointments makes just as much, if not more sense than Liverpool, especially as Chelsea have won something more recently than a League Cup over six years ago.
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Liverpool are a way bigger club than Chelsea though. If we were up there, they'd be hyping us up too. Neutrals don't really care about Chelsea. They don't even have their title of "most plastic club" anymore.
 
noodlehair said:
I'm becoming increasingly confused by this. It's been going on all season and bares no relation at all to results, performances, achievements, or any other thing you would care to measure it by. It has reached a point where it just seems like some kind of weird propaganda campaign, where certain members of the press and media think that if they repeat it enough times, it'll trick people into thinking it is true...except that doesn't really work as it wont magically make the results of games change.

It's gone from being baffling gibberish to just sounding plain desperate, yet it will no doubt continue into and well beyond this weekend.

Here are some fun (boring) facts:

Liverpool's form over the last 10 games in all competitions is actually worse than Man Utd's:
Liverpool: W4 L3 D3
United: W4 L2 D4

United are apparently currently in crisis and a "laughing stock"....you have to go back to the first three games of the season for Liverpool's results to compare in any way favourably to United's at all, and their performances have done nothing to suggest it should be any different.

Meanwhile, City's form over the same period:
City: W9 L0 D1

...The draw was away at Liverpool where City were the better team and missed a last minute penalty. Then you have this:

City vs Liverpool this season in all competitions:
City: W14 L1 D2 +40 goal difference
Liverpool: W10 L3 D3 +17 goal difference

You can argue it's difficult to say one team is better than another based on them doing better over only a period of a season, but what's happened here is the media are claiming one team is as good as another, having previously not been, based on them doing WORSE over only a period of a season. Kind of like saying you are now as fast as Usain Bolt, based on the fact he used to be faster than you, but that has changed because you are now currently losing a race against him.

If you go back to the previous season, Liverpool finished 25 points behind City, and won the sum total of feck all, so there is no argument to even bother with there. In fact, using results over this period, the only differing conclusion you can reach is that it's not yet actually fair to say Liverpool are as good as or better than United or Spurs. Where as based on only this season, it is not yet fair to say they are as good as or better than Chelsea, who's results have been marginally better and who have beaten Liverpool.

Is it just me being a United fan or do our media need to massively wind their neck in when it comes to Liverpool? This seems to be a recurring theme. All last season the mantra was about how Liverpool would finish second, yet the more likely scenario was constantly the threat of them struggling to finish 4th. There were documentaries about Salah, as if he was the second coming of Jesus. A few years ago when they did well, we were all constantly told about how they were "everyone's second team" despite not a single person I knew actively routing for them.

We used to have this with Arsenal back in the Wenger vs Ferguson days, but it kind of made sense then since everyone was sick of United. Now it just seems to be based on bugger all other than out of hand bias.
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Looking at "all competitions" makes Liverpool look bad because they're going through the same issue that City have only just started to come to terms with. It's hard work performing well in the CL and keeping ahead of the pack in the PL.

In the PL they're right behind City and this has been reflected by the press. When the two teams were neck and and City looked a little wobbly (e.g drawing with Wolves) then it was talked of as a proper two horse race. More recently, there's been a shift to portray City as the team to beat. The only slight anomaly has been an arguable reluctance to talk up Chelsea as a big rival to City but Chelsea are a weird team. They're always swinging from one extreme to another. Unlike Liverpool, though, when they're hot they have a habit of actually winning the league.

Basically, I don't think Liverpool are getting any kind of biased treatment. They're right up there with the best teams in the league and have proven themselves capable of beating City in a head to head. So why shouldn't the press be talking them up as one of the only teams with a chance to derail City's stroll to yet another title?
 
United fans all want Liverpool fans to claim they will challenge or win the league because we spent big. We are realistic and know this City team is on another planet so we don't expect to win it, then we're told we have a defeatist attitude. Then the media hypes us up and everyone goes into meltdown. :confused::confused: You're damned if you do and you're damned if you don't.
 
I haven't watched much of Liverpool this season but I did watch the game on the weekend vs Arsenal and I was surprised. Liverpool has changed their style. At least they have on evidence of that game. They weren't pressing like they have the past couple of years. Instead, they were holding at defense and playing with a really high line. It actually surprises me how good their goals against record is. With a high line and no pressing all it takes is a ball over the top with forwards/wingers on the move to expose them. Arsenal never took advantage of this and instead tried to pass the ball through them. I think it's something that can definitely be exposed...
 
I don't think we're on City's level at all personally. Weirdly we might end up above them after this weekend's results, but I'm not convinced we're in their league. They control games better than we do and have a better variety of players than we do in midfield.

Defensively it's balanced but everything else favors City.
 
They just want a title race to have something interesting to write about. They'd hype up a proper Manchester title race as well, I don't think they give a toss about which teams are involved as long as they sell papers/generate clicks.
 
Meh, Liverpool have shown they can at least compete with City based on their head to head matchups last season.

This isn't as bad as the media trying to hype Spurs up as title challengers in 16/17 when Chelsea were clearly running away with it.
 
CA1 said:
This.

They were claiming we were on a par with them last season.

Hence why when we dropped a few points we were hammered.
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Last season though our results at least were coomparable to City up until around now. Then they won about 50 games in a row and our results took a dip. They'd also finished well off the pace the season before so there was no basis to expect them to get around the 100 point mark. This season there is every reason to think they will come somewhere close to that.

Also last season, we pretty much received nothing but criticism from the point of drawing with Liverpool at Anfield onwards. THe criticism based onn oour negative tactics which didn't allow Liverpool to win the game...remember this is the same game in which Klopp subbed off ALL of his front three players when the score was 0-0 and Liverpool were the home team. The consensus from that point on was Liverpool being a better team than United, based on them not being able to win a home game against them. SO even back then, the media angle with regards to Liverpool was making very little sense.

If the media are desperate for a title race there would be no reason to keep belittling Chelsea, who have looked a very goood team this season, are above Liverpool, have beaten Liverpool, have proven pedigree in terms of their ability to win or challenge for the league. All we here about Chelsea is how they will "struggle to keep pace with City and Liverpool"...where on earth does the "and Liverpool" part of this assessment come from? There is literally no evidence at all to suggest Liverpool are currently a better team than Chelsea.
 
Ether said:
Meh, Liverpool have shown they can at least compete with City based on their head to head matchups last season.

This isn't as bad as the media trying to hype Spurs up as title challengers in 16/17 when Chelsea were clearly running away with it.
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Yeah, I mean, this kind of happened, but Spurs were the closest team to them, and it wasn't blatantly obvious that Chelsea were about 3 levels above everyone else like it is with City.

One of their head to head match ups last season ended with City winning 5-0 didn't it? They did do well against them in the other league game and CL game at Anfield but that's very thin basis to claim a title challenge. United vs City head to head last season ended 5-5, and we wont be competing with them for anything this season, no matter how much we might improve.
 
Dec9003 said:
They're probably just desperate for a title race. Somebody on the forum pointed out that there hasn't been a close one in years, it certainly makes it more boring.
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Yeah. Also a bit like they're thinking of last season's Liverpool in terms of attack and adding van Dijk and Alisson to defence sorts out that side. Defensively, they're a lot better this season but in terms of attack they've gone off the boil - they've only scored two more goals than us in the league and went through a period in late September to late October of scoring zero or one goals (granted, during that period they did play Chelsea twice, Napoli and City). City have hardly looked like missing De Bruyne whereas Liverpool are probably missing Ox or someone to link midfield to attack.

No team is on par with City but the matches from now until when City and Liverpool next play each other at the beginning of January will indicate how close a contender they could be for the league.
 
noodlehair said:
Yeah, I mean, this kind of happened, but Spurs were the closest team to them, and it wasn't blatantly obvious that Chelsea were about 3 levels above everyone else like it is with City.

One of their head to head match ups last season ended with City winning 5-0 didn't it? They did do well against them in the other league game and CL game at Anfield but that's very thin basis to claim a title challenge. United vs City head to head last season ended 5-5, and we wont be competing with them for anything this season, no matter how much we might improve.
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I think beating them 3 out of 4 times when they met last season shows they can challenge them. The 5-0 was bad but two of the goals came in the last 15 minutes against a beaten 10 man side. Their CL performance away at City was very impressive and they blew them away twice at home, even though City made it close with two late goals in the 4-3.

I use the Spurs comparison because the closest they got to Chelsea was 4 points behind with four games left, whereas Liverpool went top of the league 10 days ago.
 
Fantastic bump. :D First page is a car crash caused by a train wreckage from Noods. Adexkola and Pogue :eek: the voices of reason among them.
 
Because they are on par. The league will be very tight between the two. And the title isn't won yet.

City have had bad luck. But tactically Leicester allowed them to have that much of the ball, then went all out for it near the end and got the goal. If they were to go out and attack all game they would likely get demolished. They gambled at the end (not settling for a draw) and stole the win.

But the league is far from over yet.
 
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They are not only at par, but the best team in England by far. This is when we realize our worst fear, it is absolutely Liverpool's year.
 
They really aren't on par. City losses have been insane matches where they couldn't put away any of their scrambles. Liverpool games have been close all season. Not near the same level of dominance. I think it will play out before the seasons end, especially when you look back at klopps career and how hard it is to maintain momentum
 
Crashoutcassius said:
They really aren't on par. City losses have been insane matches where they couldn't put away any of their scrambles. Liverpool games have been close all season. Not near the same level of dominance. I think it will play out before the seasons end, especially when you look back at klopps career and how hard it is to maintain momentum
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I mean it's surely a bit ridiculous at this point to claim they're not on a par when they're quite literally seven points ahead in the league? City have often won by bigger margins, yes, but consistency is a key part of a league season: winning by five goals regularly won't necessarily win you the title if you're too leaky defensively, for example, and throw away a lot of silly points.

The claim Liverpool are winning games by narrow margins doesn't work either. They've won by four goals on three separate occasions, and have won seven of their last eight games by more than one goal. If they continue on their current track they'll have one of the most impressive GD's of any title winning side.

I do think City will creep back into it and that Liverpool are due a bad patch but it's silly to claim they aren't the best side in the league right now.
 
Crashoutcassius said:
They really aren't on par. City losses have been insane matches where they couldn't put away any of their scrambles. Liverpool games have been close all season. Not near the same level of dominance. I think it will play out before the seasons end, especially when you look back at klopps career and how hard it is to maintain momentum
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Get real. Their goal difference is exactly the same, not sure what picture you’re trying to paint.

Another point, this is one of the reasons I took issue to this weak proposal of us basically throwing the season and having a party under Ole as there was apparently nothing to play for. How we end the season is important regardless of achievement. Why should we fall to like 12th then have the new manager try and pick us up from there? The praise Liverpool got was because everyone could see even from last season that if they made a few tweaks, they would challenge. That’s how we want to finish the season, not in a position of needing to start again, again.
 
Cheesy said:
I mean it's surely a bit ridiculous at this point to claim they're not on a par when they're quite literally seven points ahead in the league? City have often won by bigger margins, yes, but consistency is a key part of a league season: winning by five goals regularly won't necessarily win you the title if you're too leaky defensively, for example, and throw away a lot of silly points.

The claim Liverpool are winning games by narrow margins doesn't work either. They've won by four goals on three separate occasions, and have won seven of their last eight games by more than one goal.

I do think City will creep back into it and that Liverpool are due a bad patch but it's silly to claim they aren't the best side in the league right now.
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I don't think difference in points over 19 games is a perfect evaluation of a teams ability vs another team. I can appreciate some people will think this but I don't agree I think a lot can come into it other than pure skill. From watching games I don't think pool are the same quality as city. Credit to them for points total though
 
What crashedoutcassius is saying is that the league table lies.
 
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