Manchester City have had to battle Liverpool for numerous Premier League titles over the past decade.
A lot of that period saw Pep Guardiola try and get the better of Jurgen Klopp’s Liverpool.
During Klopp’s nine-year spell in charge of the Merseyside club, they won one Premier League title, whereas City have won six league trophies in the past seven years.
Now that Klopp has walked away from his position at Anfield, Liverpool now have Arne Slot as their new manager.
Even though the preseason period is still some weeks away, the new Reds boss has shared his thoughts on how City and Liverpool have battled it out at the top of the Premier League over the past few years.
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In his first interview with Liverpool’s media, shared on their official club website, Slot had this to say when asked about the rivalry between Guardiola’s City and Klopp’s Reds.
He said: “I am 45 now and [have been] watching football for a long time and watching football a lot, and I think this has been an era where everybody looked at the Barcelona side of Xavi [Hernandez], [Andres] Iniesta and [Lionel] Messi and the rivalry there was between Real Madrid with Cristiano Ronaldo being there.
“And I think when that came to an end, the new rivalry in European football came because of Jurgen – he managed Liverpool and Pep Guardiola, of course, managed Manchester City and I think for everyone who loves football it was a fantastic era to watch the both of them getting the best out of each other.
“Yeah, I have seen a lot of games of Liverpool, a lot of games of City as well, and when you live in Europe the Premier League is probably the nicest league to follow.”
City vs Liverpool head-to-head
Out of the 16 Premier League games Guardiola, who Gary Lineker said last month is a better manager than the departed German, overlooked against Klopp’s Liverpool, City won five, drew seven and lost four.
In terms of their overall Premier League seasons under Guardiola, Liverpool only finished above City once, came second behind them twice and finished below second on five occasions since the 2016/17 campaign.
Taking all of that into account, we feel that Slot’s comparison of City and Liverpool to the Real Madrid and Barcelona rivalry of old is rather inaccurate given how the Manchester club were clearly the more dominant side during Klopp’s reign at Anfield.