This has been something that baffled me for a long time now. How come Liverpool always gets more praise than Manchester City?
Last season's PFA Team of the Season included six Liverpool players, 1 Manchester United Player, 1 Chelsea player, and 3 Manchester City players. This isn't the first time where we see Manchester City win the league yet Liverpool players dominate the Team of the Season picks. Why is that?
More Individuality
I mentioned this in my series about Pep Guardiola, there's a more mechanical feeling with Pep Guardiola teams, and that feeling exists the most with Manchester City.
Liverpool, on the other hand, Klopp's chaotic playstyle highlights individuals more and more. While the German manager does definitely have his touch on the team, you get to see the space he gives players in action with many goals.
Whether those goals are the result of Trent Alexander-Arnold or Andrew Robertson's crosses, Salah or Mane cutting inside, you can identify Liverpool's goals by the players scoring them rather than something being a "Liverpool goal".
Meanwhile, if I describe a Manchester City goal, you couldn't identify it with anyone.
For Example
Tell me if you've seen this goal before and who scored it:
Manchester City has the ball in midfield, they move the ball in midfield before passing it to the winger who goes toward the goal before cutting the ball inside to a teammate who scored it.
You could probably name 10 different matches where that happened with every compilation of players it could have happened with. Meanwhile, even Trent Alexander-Arnold and Andrew Robertson's crosses are different in style and target. Same with Salah and Mane, now Diaz, style of cutting inside.
You could notice a difference between Mane, Jota, and Firmino when each is playing in the center attacker position. We also notice Liverpool's players' absence more. Virgil van Dijk's long-term knee injury was attributed to Liverpool almost missing out on the Champions League a few seasons ago.
Bad Reputation
Let's face it, you can't say Manchester City without someone screaming "Oil money". It is tiring to keep explaining how little that matters but an "oil club" is an "oil club" even when the team across town outspending the "oil club" lately with no result. Manchester City has a stigma.
It is a flawed reason as it is used to imply that Manchester City and Pep Guardiola bought the league, however, it is also not used to mean that the players purchased are better than Liverpool's.
Opinion
As much as I wanted to genuinely answer the question of why Liverpool players are considered better than City's in the PFA and the popular opinion's eye genuinely, as much as I conclude that it is simply a bias against Manchester City.
Even though Bernardo Silva is more versatile than any Liverpool players, Ruben Dias and Ederson kept as many clean sheets as Virgil van Dijk and Alisson, the latter two were named in the team of the season while the first two weren't.
Last season's PFA Manager of the Season was Jurgen Klopp, which means that Liverpool has at least the 6 best players in the league and the best manager. That's illogical when Manchester City won the league. You simply can't have the best players, the best manager, and the best team yet aren't the team winning the title. You have to at least be missing two of those categories to still not be the overall winner.
In Conclusion
Whether it is Klopp being the more loveable, Liverpool being the team you're more sympathetic toward, Pep being hated, or Manchester City's mechanical feeling, maybe it is all and more reasons, that Manchester City players are underappreciated for a team that remained consistent enough to win four out of the
last five league campaigns. If we're going to praise Liverpool for becoming so close twice, then we have to praise City more for keeping their noses up front.
Whatever the final reason may be doesn't make a difference. The result is that Manchester City players and managers will always be, oxymoronically, underappreciated individually.
City and Pep have been dominating the Premier League, they are a team that knows how to win the domestic league, although without a doubt Liverpool have wanted to keep up the pace in my opinion they are still a step behind city.
I think the reason is the first point is the main reason. It's hard to pick a single player out as the best. Though KDB, Mahrez, Cancelo are top players but the whole team is top class. But with Liverpool, individuality shows .
For me the whole issue of a team of the season is totally subjective, and doesn't even warrant any thought in my mind. A bunch of self congratultory nobody's deciding on who they think for a split second in time deserves some degree of extra praise for doing their job well. You could just as well argue why Harry Kane wasn't considered - he was nominated for player of the year - why not team of the year also. Yet Kane wasn't even Spurs best player - Son Heung-min as joint golden boot would have been a better nomination IMHO (and I'm no Spurs BTW). If the PFA nobody's had voted a week earlier or later we might have seen a different set of players, who know's ...and really who cares. It's a meaningless award. However, still an interesting read as usual Amir
I think this season City will win yet again. It will be a very dominant performance and will calm every hater down.