The Manchester United dilemma.

Chelsea vs Manchester United today and this game presents Liverpool fans with something of a dilemma..

A glance at the table shows that Liverpool have more interest in Chelsea's results than they do of Manchester United's as far as their direct effect on where Liverpool are in the league.

Chelsea currently sit in 4th place, which apparently these days is the equivalent of actually winning something, you only have to look at Spurs attitude to their European campaign this season to see that the pursuit of finishing in the top 4 holds more pull than (some) trophies.

Now be a good boy and this will all be over very quickly

I thought teams were supposed to be measured by what they actually won, but it seems that they are measured more in balance sheets these days - I'm getting off topic a little.

Chelsea sit 4th - 4 points ahead of Liverpool so it would seem that we want them to badly to further our own cause - well yes we do.. but also, today at least, not so much.

If Man Utd did us a favour today and we returned the favour on Monday by beating Spurs, then we would be a point off Chelsea and they would be back level with City and Harry Redknapp would be left to concentrate on more pressing matters than league title challenges.

Now this would all be very nice in the spirit of mutual co-operation, but it doesn't exactlty sit very well with me. Manchester United winning anything ever is a bad thing. If history has taught us anything it is this and also don't try to invade Russia, it's too cold.

If you look at the longer term view then we have a different spin on things. We are still in direct competition with Manchester United (technically at least). You may have noticed that they are now on 19 league titles.. they got quite excited by this as it meant that they now 'knocked us off our perch'.

Liverpool aren't going be winning the title this season.. and we are going to have to have a serious improvement if we are going to do in next season either.

In the mean time, we have to hope that some of the other birds  (stay with me on this), keep Man Utd well away from actually winning anymore titles while we get our shit together - whenever that might be. It seems in this analogy that David Silva is a set of rather sharp claws.

Man City and indeed Chelsea are quite handy as far as this goes, because in terms of winning the title (historically at least) they are both irrelevant.

Personally I would be delighted to see Man City win the league this season - having lived there for a while, the reaction of the blue half taking even 3 points off the red half of Manchester usually involves the red half throwing their toys out of the pram (or pints across pubs).

If City actually started taking titles off them it would be another level of hilarity entirely.

So where does this all leave us in terms of today? Well as far as I see it a draw would be preferable all round.
Man Utd lose out, Chelsea lose out and if both these teams aren't happy, well something must be right with the world.

The most important thing to remember in all of this... it's OUR perch. We're going to want it back at some point, so don't get used to it.. and try not to get shit all over it either. (I think I need to stop now.)