Liverpool always thought of themselves as different to other clubs and the club they once considered themselves most different from was Chelsea.
They had The Kop, Chelsea had hospitality packages. Liverpool had Jamie Carragher and Steven Gerrard, boys from Bootle and Huyton. Chelsea fielded a team derided as “mercenaries”. In the 2005 Champions League semi-finals, Chelsea handed out plastic flags to their fans. Liverpool had no need. Anfield roared so loud the stands shook and a team led by Jose Mourinho, who would win the Premier League by a dozen points, were fatally unnerved.
Liverpool have become Chelsea. One in five who goes to Anfield does so on a hospitality ticket. Whether England win the World Cup will have no bearing on Liverpool because they did not contribute a single player to Thomas Tuchel’s squad. In May, they sacked Arne Slot, the manager who 12 months before had won them the title, which seems a very Chelsea thing to do.
On the same day, Chelsea and Liverpool unveiled their new managers, who might almost be interchangeable. It is a little over a 20-minute drive between where Xabi Alonso and Andoni Iraola grew up in the Basque Country. Like another boy, Mikel Arteta, they learned their football as eight-year-olds on the gravel pitches of Antiguoko in San Sebastian. They are represented by the same agency, Idub Global.
