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Having spent the last two decades watching their arch rivals dominate the Premier League, Liverpool fans can take solace in the loftiness of their league position in comparison to Manchester United. The two titans of the north-west meet on Monday evening, with Anfield playing host to a clash which could shape their respective seasons. Liverpool are 4th, United are 6th, and three points separate them in the nascent league table. The honeymoon period is coming to an end for Jurgen Klopp and already appears to have passed for Jose Mourinho. Both men will realise the significance of the match, both in a material sense and a symbolic one, too.When it comes to pointed symbolism, Liverpool have widely been regarded as an emblem of faded glory in recent years. Having dominated domestic football throughout the 70s and 80s, their decline since the early 90s has felt inexorable at times. Despite winning the Champions League in the interim – a feat which many would say makes up for their middling league status, of course – the Merseysiders have fallen out of European contention in the past half-decade and have spent several seasons in the mid-table mire. Supporters are hoping that Jurgen Klopp is the man to arrest that slow subsidence, and his first year in the job suggests that optimism is built on relatively solid ground.United, meanwhile, are in a difficult position. Some have suggested there are parallels between their own recent decline and that of the great 80s Liverpool sides. This is where the word 'dynasty' tends to crop up, as though football abides by the same rules as monarchical struggle. Bob Paisley, Joe Fagan and Kenny Dalglish were the old Plantagenets, Alex Ferguson the usurping Tudor. Now his royal line has collapsed in turn, and a war of succession is about to be fought.While fans on both sides might consider this weekend a battle, a tooth-and-nail struggle over the future of the Premier League throne, football is never quite as simple as the politics of the past. The truth is that, with the contemporary demand for instant results and constant managerial changes, the age of footballing dynasties could be over. The narrative of Liverpool rising as Manchester United fall might be nice and neat, but it reflects an illusory sense of longevity which is history as far as English football is concerned. These days, football is more about temporary regimes than longstanding empires. Klopp and Mourinho know that all too well; the price of winning this weekend is not so much hegemony, as it is a sense of stability in what has become an increasingly short and volatile vocation.
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