Gary Neville has admitted that the atmosphere at Anfield when Liverpool play Manchester United is better than at Old Trafford – or it certainly was during his career – anyway.
The pundit was speaking ahead of Sunday’s clash, which we’ve seemingly been building up to forever due to this never ending international break.
“I always think that when you look at the Liverpool vs United game, the game at Liverpool is always much more fiery and emotional than a game at Old Trafford,” Neville told Sky Sports.
“Atmosphere, emotion, feeling; it took me years to get used to playing at Anfield. Years.”
Jamie Carragher, his former enemy turned colleague, agreed.
“I always felt the atmosphere was better at Anfield,” he said. “The Kop when you’re coming out, ‘You’ll Never Walk Alone’.”
Old Trafford is awful for atmosphere, but we actually think on Sunday it’ll be fiery.
Their fans have little reason to get excited at the moment. They’re not going to win the Premier League – they probably won’t even be in the race for the top four – so a chance to dent our title bid will be one of the biggest occasions of their season – as it often was for us the other way round in the past two decades.
Ole Gunnar Solskjaer’s XI is injury hit, though, and it’s up to Jurgen Klopp’s Reds to put them to the sword and silence the crowd.
The first 20 minutes will be crucial. If we can keep the ball, slow the tempo – then we can control the game going into half-time and after the first 45 minutes.