Liverpool Remains Biggest Premier League Game of Manchester United's Season

According to the Premier League table, the third-best team in England will face the ninth-best at Old Trafford on Sunday. If you didn't know any better, you might assume it was just a normal game. But it's not. It's Manchester United versus Liverpool.

Neither team are playing particularly well. There is sense that, at the moment, United are getting away with playing poorly while Liverpool are not. It's the reason Gary Neville chose to liken the fixture to a pub game while appearing on Sky Sports. There is, though, a lot more at stake than that. 

That would still be true if the game was third versus ninth in the conference. It's a rivalry that means more than league position or three points. 

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Two working-class clubs in working-class cities, the loathing is fuelled, in part, by their similarities. Like feuding siblings who can't stand to be in the same room.

They are English football's two most successful clubs. United have more league titles. Liverpool have won more European Cups. Both say their achievement is more impressive, as each set of fans will remind the other on Sunday.

It's been rare over the last 20 years for United and Liverpool to fight it out for the title. United developed rivalries with Blackburn, Arsenal and Chelsea under Sir Alex Ferguson because they presented the greatest threat to their domestic dominance.

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But Ferguson would regularly refer to Liverpool as United's biggest game of the season, even when they were struggling to finish in the top half of the table. 

Only the result matters. Louis van Gaal has been searching for the perfect performance this season. But that will be put aside for a few hours this weekend. The United fans would happily take a scrappy 1-0 win now if it were an offer. The pursuit of perfection under the new manager can wait a week.

With that in mind, Liverpool's poor form—they've won three of their last 12 in all competitions and were knocked out of the Champions League on Tuesday—presents United and Van Gaal with an opportunity.

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It's a chance to register a big win against a team who, on form, they should beat. Victory over Liverpool, in any circumstance, is always most welcome among United's players and fans—especially this time, in the first competitive meeting since the embarrassing 3-0 home defeat in March.

Some of United's younger fans will tell you Manchester City is their biggest game of the season. They have grown up watching City, rather than Liverpool, win things. 

But for the majority, Liverpool is still the first game circled when the fixtures come out. It's a hatred bred by geography, a clash of cultures and years of monumental battles.

United and Liverpool might square up at Old Trafford on Sunday at something of a low ebb. But they are two of English football's heavyweights who loathe each other more than any other. The game this weekend, with the thunderous challenges and screaming passion in the stands, will reflect that rather than their respective league positions.